I still hold onto my hypothesis that two (likely real) things hurt D&D 4e more than anything else:
1) Incoherency within the editorial team or process. Incoherency between the editorial teams' understanding of the 4e vision and the game designers' actual vision.
2) Either too many cooks in the kitchen of the design team or the unwillingness (fear?) to explicitly canvass design intent at initial release in the summer of 2008.
A simple look at PHB1, DMG1 and DMG2 (released only 15 months after the initial release of the system) reveals all kinds of inconsistencies.
In PHB1, on page 9 and 10, you have the "How Do You Play" section which is obviously meant to introduce new players to standard operating procedures and reinforce the same to tenured players. Here it tells you to immerse and be your character (advocating Actor Stance) and then goes on to canvass:
Combat Encounters: Standard, neutral text which span all editions.
Noncombat Encounters: Here we get reinforcement of classic D&D play; Deadly traps, difficult puzzles, other obstacles, etc. Sometimes you'll use character skills, clever use of magic, your own wits (puzzles). Social interactions; persuade, bargain, obtain info from DM controlled sources etc.
Exploration, Taking Your Turn and Example of Play: Here we REALLY, REALLY get classic, pulp D&D play promoted and illustrated as the default. Everything you can think of in classic play is nailed down here from DM rulings (DM having the final say), classic dungeon-crawling and open world, sand-boxing; Move down hallways, following passages, listening at doors, checking doors/chests for locks/traps, break down doors, search for treasure, explore for pulling levers, pushing statues, moving furnishings, picking locks, jury-rigging traps, etc, etc. It even promotes the classic mundane versus powerful magic paradigm; "can't punch through 3-inch thick iron doors with your bare hands - not unless you have powerful magic to help you out!" And then we have the, limited (obviously introductory stuff like we did when we were kids) very pulpy example of exploratory play.
All of this instruction really, really looks to be aimed at introducing extremely novice players (very young kids like when many of us started) to classic D&D exploratory play. I wonder if this is yet another reason why many felt turned off and felt condescended to/patronized. Perhaps the at the editorial meetings, they felt the best way forward was to write to the extremely novice, young players...and that was the editorial voice they used for much of the introductory text of the initial books.
Then you have an entire book of classes filled with, primarily, closed-scene (encounters), protagonist powers. These powers span all manner of stance; from Actor (which was tacitly and implicitly advocated in the How Do You Play and Making Characters sections - "your avatar" or "you") to Author to Director. We then get Rituals and its rules, which any class can take, which expressley are "extra-encounter" exploratory/interaction play-driven.
Then we get DMG 1 which is all over the place in editorial tone and direction. Its tone modulates from the "FUN!" section whereby it attempts to respect all playstyles and say there is no such thing as "badwrongfun", whatever you and your players agree on is fun is...well...fun...so do that! Then it goes on to advocate classic D&D exploratory play. Then it goes on to tell you to to "Get to the fun!" and gloss over the mundane, skip boring "sand-boxesque" details and get to the heroic action. And then it goes back to trying to modulate the tone and be a proponent of classic D&D interests when it circles the wagons of the classic D&D cultural meme (from 2e onward) and ACTUALLY SAY METAGAMING IS SUBVERSIVE (p15)...4E...averse to the metagame? What? Then it goes on to equivocate in championing classically Indie interests that are metagame friendly in the conflict resolution, scene-framing tool of Skill Challenges (which anyone who has any Indie-Gaming experience immediately knew what this was). Except it does it with just enough noncommittal, nebulous instruction to confuse many (new and old) users into not fully getting the why and how.
Then we get lots of Dungeon material clarifying Skill Challenge whys and hows (failing forward, etc) and its clear Indie roots and whys and hows.
Then we get the DMG2 with Laws. This was an extraordinarily focused (design vision and editorial) book. It was wonderfully elegant, savvy and honest. It fully discloses the metagame friendly, scene-framing power of 4e from collective storytelling and tangible, drama rewards to incentivize it, to branching, to cooperative arcs and world-building, how to compose vignettes and closed scenes, most of the whys and hows of Skill Challenges (from stakes to composition to failing forward to framing the scene and preparing and setting ultimate outcomes). The entire book unabashedly, explicitly advocated a Narrative creative agenda of PC protagonism and co-authorship of the fiction with the players.
To this day, I still don't know if it was 1 or 2 or both. None of it mattered to me because I knew the product instantly from the Gamist/Narrativist Creative Agenda at its core framework of PC protagonism, fiction co-authorship, metagame friendliness, and scene-framing default playstyle. It was quite clear looking at the meat and potatoes of the system. However, the PHB1 and DMG1 content (resolution tools, PC resources, advice and the editorializing) was absolutely all over the place. Left hand; I'd like you to meet the Right Hand.
All of that being said. I still hold that you absolutely can, 100 % use the ruleset to reproduce classic D&D. You just have to be finicky in power selection and do a few things slightly differently than the default playstyle suggests...which is pretty much the case for every table in the history of D&D preceding 4e...but somehow 4e doesn't get that same "hey, drift it to meet your tastes" treatment.
I certainly wouldn't have bought/used Essentials materials if it meant no PHB ('Weaponmaster') Fighters anymore! 
