The Crimson Binome
Hero
As you say, crunchier PCs are incompatible with easy NPCs, if they both use the same rules. You have to choose your priorities.What about the calls for crunchier player character generation and build options?
Where Pathfinder 1 succeeded was that they chose the exact same priorities as 3.5 (complex characters, NPC symmetry, lots of work for the GM), which meant nobody had any reason to stick with 3.5 instead of moving to Pathfinder. With Pathfinder 2, they're going with different priorities than either Pathfinder 1 or D&D 5E, which means somebody is going to be left behind no matter what. That's a much riskier move than if they'd just tried to update an existing game.