Interesting. I didn't know that was a (major) issue.
If I had guessed, the vulnerability of the pet to an area effect would be the #1 issue.
The first design goal of any pet companion ability should clearly be that the owner should never need to ressurrect the pet more often than any other valued member of the party.
(Yes, way before even starting to worry if the pet does any actual good. And I'm saying that as a fairly hardcore DM where players judge abilities by their Damage-Per-Round potential! Not even I am immune to the fact that a tiger or wolf is not worth having even if it eats the monsters alive, if you need to replace/raise Fluffy every other game session)
So clearly Crawford needs to be exposed to actual gamer questions, where he can't hide behind corporate .
Obviously it varies with focus.
For me well before we get to sub-class features is the notion of the basic class highlights and the ranger to me has always been keyed more towards your solid go-to guy for outdoors guide and hunter stuff. Whether or not they choose a companion for combat or for scout or if they even go that route is to me secondary to whether or not a good number of the core abilities work in like 75% of the adventuring space (or limits the campaign to that other 25% etc.)
But, a lot will vary by campaign.