Which is exactly what you are doing now. Pushing your opinion. See how we can go round and round on this all day. So again, stop with the "hardcores can be elitist" attitude because reading your "dumbed down" post is just as elitist and privileged.
Maybe we can change the narrative here. Maybe we can ALL be right, and we can respect each others opinions instead if playing a game of one upmanship on who has the better idea and what kind of player is the best one to make money from and what category of game this should be. Instead of pointing fingers at a type of player and yelling "you ruined it" lets acknowledge that we all paid our money, we all put in the hours so we all have the right to love and experience the game as we wish. So its ok to miss sticks and the crafting grid, its ok to like the perk system but its also ok to NOT like some of the changes and its also ok to NOT like a new direction for something when for years the old direction was so well loved.
Stones and glass houses and such.