I didn't want to comment on the rest of your post, but something stuck with me, and I went back, and this was it.
There is a large disconnect if you keep insisting (as I have seen various designers insist) that the consumers are "just doing it wrong."
Let's give an easy example- a lot of what you hear is engineered to please you. Like ... the thunk of your car door when it closes. You may, or may not, know this but the door doesn't naturally sound like this anymore (the deep and satisfying clunk); instead, engineers had to alter car doors to provide the sound that people were expecting and wanting.
You know where this is going, right? Okay, how about when you take a photo on your phone- that satisfying sound of the shutter noise that doesn't exist. It's all electronic, so why not have it sound like, oh, church bells ringing? Because that's the sound people expect. At some point, people will expect the signifier (the shutter sound) without even having a reference to the signified (a physical camera that would make the sound), in the same way that we still use 5 1/4" floppy disk icons to indicate something to be saved.
So from a design standpoint, you have it entirely wrong. Designing something that is (in your opinion) good unless you're some sort of bad consumer that likes bad previous editions completely missed the dynamic; the job of a good designer is to allow people to embrace the changes; and sometimes designers simply have to give consumers what they want and what they expect, or find a way to meld the changes into what the consumers want and expect.
This is even moreso when you are designing for the flagship product in an product category- like D&D. If you're designing for D&D, you don't get a blank slate, unfortunately. It's the blessing AND the curse; you get the built-in name brand loyalty and advantage of all those consumers eager to buy your products, but you also have to deign within the strictures of those years of products that have come before you.
You can't blame people for not liking something.
No, you can't. People can like any ole thing and have no obligation to explain why.
But people liking a thing has absolutely no bearing on the quality of a thing. Thats a huge issue that trips up otherwise very smart people. They conflate "I like this" with "This is good"
I'll use myself as an example. When I was growing up, I read a TON of forgotten realms novels. I wont name specific books or authors because I don't wish to cast aspersions. When I try to go back and read them today, I still get a lot of enjoyment out of them. However, having grown up and become more educated in literature and art and such, I recognize that they are for the most part extremely poor quality works. They just...well, aren't good. They didn't have to be, I enjoyed them. I enjoyed them more (much more in some cases) than legitimately good works of literature. I'd much rather read me some Forgotten Realms than say the Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, or Catcher in the Rye.
Does this mean forgotten realms is of an equal or higher quality than a literary classic because I enjoyed it more? LOL no. Not even a little bit. And if I tried to claim as such, I would be (rightly) mocked because it is just clearly not so.
So when Tony claims "4e was as good a game as D&D ever managed to be"...coming back with 'But not as many people liked it!' is meaningless and doesn't address the point. Now, I mean, he doesn't really back up his claim with anything and its fine if you disagree. But the metric of 'How many people enjoyed/did not enjoy this' does not belong in a discussion about quality. Does it have a place in a discussion about 'What can we sell to make more money?' Absolutely. But thats not Tony's claim. 5e is a more profitable edition. Hands down.
But that is not indicative of quality of the product.