While many people rightly criticise 5e's "natural language" approach as well as the vagueness of its rules right now, I think those were the right moves to make in 2014. Sure, 5e is still a complex game, and the designers ended up iterating on the "natural language" in a way that it no longer sounds natural (Crawfooord!). But coming from 3.5/Pathfinder 1E to 5E was such a breath of fresh air. Compared to these editions, the rules were much more compact, simple and intuitive. I don't think D&D would be as popular as it did if it stuck to the same complexity as it had before 2014, and while the problems of that approach have become visible with a decade's worth of hindsight, it was still a wonderful at the time.