Yep, that's the nature of compromises. A compromise requires a compelling reason, though. For WotC, the compelling reason to compromise among past editions when designing 5e is that they can represent to their dark lords at Hasbro that doing so will let them re-capture the revenue lost to Pathfinder and retro-clones while retaining the revenue of 4e and driving new-customer growth. It's a good story around a conference table, I suppose, or they wouldn't have gotten the green light. It's OK as a marketing story, too, at the vaporware stage, because you can promise everyone what they want. When you start having to deliver on those promises, everyone realizes they're /not/ going to get what they want.
And the customer has little reason to compromise. The big one is, as always, the D&D name. I've left D&D before when it got bad enough, and the whole of the Pathfinder set is demonstrably willing to do so. Retro-clone fans had long since abandoned the D&D product line in favor of the D&D they already had.
I'm afraid 5e may end up selling only to those who are just unwaveringly loyal to the brand, while fans of old editions continue to play their old editions and retro-clones, and fans of 4e continue to play 4e or move on to other more modern games.
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