4e upon release stopped supporting a bunch of playstyles.
I've got a poll going asking what constitutes 'support,' because I think there's a big difference in what it means to different people, and that it's going to be a major stumbling block for 5e.
For instance, I've found that there are people who are convinced that support is a one-style-at-a-time thing. That is, a game can only support one style - maybe support one, and leave some others possible, but mostly one game, one style. The only thing 5e could do to 'support' multiple styles given that definition is provide modules and home-rule advice on how to customize the game into something that 'supports' a given style.
OTOH, there's also a lot of respondents for whom 'support' means that the game works smoothly under their style, even that other styles may be present without stepping on eachother. 5e faces different challenge with these players, because, while they're more accepting of other play styles, they expect to be able to sit down and play in their style, without having to customize the rules or even find similarly-minded individuals who can all agree to play in the same style. A merely balanced game could 'support' a lot of styles in that case.
Now, given the first definition of 'style,' 4e couldn't really have stopped supporting a /lot/ of styles, it would have just shifted from supporting one to supporting a different one. As to the alternative definition, 4e probably net added 'supported' styles, if, indeed, it stopped supporting any at all.
To continue, though, I think I need more concise, narrower definitions than 'support.' So, for my purposes, I'm going to avoid support, entirely. Instead, I'll use 'reward,' 'allow,' and 'impede.'
A system 'rewards' a style if playing in that style gives you meaningful (presumably mechanical) advantages over those who don't cleave to that style. If a system rewards several styles, but one of them more than another, I suppose I could say it 'over-rewards' that particular style. The opposite of 'rewarding' a style would be 'punishing' it, playing in the style puts you at a meaningful disadvantage relative to those who don't try to follow that style. But, it's all relative: reducing an over-rewarded style to merely rewarded is tantamount to punishing it, for instance.
A system 'allows' a style if it doesn't 'punish' the style (relative to others), and runs smoothly enough with one or more players using that style, even if other players are using different styles.
A system 'impedes' a style if it doesn't over-reward that style, and also doesn't run smoothly when that style is adopted.
Edit: as an aside, I'm going to add another category of 'support,' enabling: A system 'enables' a style when it punishes that style, but runs smoothly with it present along side other styles that are rewarded or over-rewarded relative to the enabled style. The style, then, is one in which being at a mechanical disadvantage is desirable - imagine a 'martyr' style.
So (finally), in reply, while I don't know how you meant 'support,' I'd say that 4e stopped (over-?)'rewarding' one or more styles, but ended up 'allowing' more. And, it still rewards some of the same styles, just to a lesser degree - the 5mwd being a prime example, if it can be considered a 'style.'
All we are asking is that 5e support our playstyle. I don't see anyone saying that they can't support your playstyle too.
There's definitely a lot of lines being drawn in a lot of sand - albeit, more so at the WotC boards than here. And we might not even know what some of those lines mean. What is a playstyle? (I'm starting to wonder.) What is support? (I hope I've addressed that well enough for my own purposes, here.)
For 5e, the implications of the possible meanings of support I went into, above, is troubling, because it's not just a matter of 'supporting' a wide range of styles, but dealing with the difficulty that 'support' means very different things to different slivers of the fan-base, as well. While 'supporting' in the sense of 'allowing,' playstyles, for instance, a balanced 5e would 'support' a great many, in another sense it would be 'punishing' every style that had ever been 'supported' in the 'reward' sense, in the past.
I don't see a lot of hope. In theory, 5e core could be designed to support (allow) as many styles as possible. It would have to be inclusive (err on the side of including choices like classes, races, etc, regardless of where they came from), and it would have to be balanced. Modules could be used to support (reward) both traditional play styles, and styles that D&D hasn't historically supported (rewarded) as much. And, extensive advice could be extended to the DM, detailing how to modify the game to encourage (support in the sense of reward or even over-reward) or discourage (not support in the sense of punish) any given play style.
5e, even though early vaporware said it would allow players favoring different editions to all sit at the same table and still balance, doesn't appear to be trying to do that. Rather, fans are fighting over who gets supported (rewarded) in Core (currently it looks, to me, like fans of classic D&D have the inside track), and doing their best to get everyone else's preferences kicked to modules (preferably modules that might not get published until 6e is looking for playtesters).
