Sometimes I have the feeling that these L&L articles are more written to push our expectations in one direction than to really listen our opinions.
I think that it's partly expectation managment and partly testing the waters. If the designers really want to do X or think that Y might be a good idea - then airing A and Y in a poll sees what the reaction might be.
I guess that a balanced "Meh" reaction means that they can push something forward and a "Hell, No!" reaction means that it's not worth the cost in goodwill (c.f. political capital) to push something forwards.
I hope that sometimes there's a "Gosh"" reaction too where we, the voters, are unexpectedly keen on something thrown in as an experiement, i.e. Action points: ~2:1 vote for them to be core rules - and not really a heritage mechanic in D&D. (Are they in d20 Modern?)