Parmandur
Book-Friend
If the WGTE “was a playtest”, wotc did something extremely dishonest with its release. You know people payed for it, right?
Certainly, but WotC was always upfront on what they were doing. Mearls even laid out their exact plans for this hardcover on Twitter as a conditional possibility. They released a portion of the book on UA the day of release, and proceeded to release the relevant playtest material for the rest of the year. They've also stated they will finalize the WGtE and enable PoD, and I see no reason to doubt they will, since the parts they are likely to repeat are all free online for everyone.
The value for the WGtE was never the material that they were making free, it's the other ~150 pages of setting and RP info from Keith Baker.