At the least, we can say that 5e has been the least divisive of all WotC editions to-date.
I'm not disagreeing, per se, but how do you reckon this? Looking at 3E
at the same time after release, it seemed way less divisive, with virtually everyone I knew (online and off) seeing it as significant improvement over 2E, and tons of people coming back to D&D for it. People sticking with D&D/1E/2E were far and few between and virtually no-one was even considering D&D-esque games.
Whereas say, a year or three after 3.5E, we were seeing significant dissatisfaction, people heading off to other d20 and non-d20 RPGs, and the very beginnings of mainstream retro-clones, and so on. But where will 5E be in four-five-six years? Hard to say.
Even comparing 5E to the latter, I'm not sure it's brought a lot of people back into the fold - I still see a lot of people playing retro-clones and alternative D&Ds like Pathfinder or Dungeon World. 4E was certainly more divisive than 5E, though.
So I'm not really seeing "least divisive". I can see "managed to heal some cracks and certainly avoided exacerbating most of them". But I feel like 3E brought people together way more, even if it later blew them apart.
EDIT:
This is an interesting passage:
Basically, no matter what your preference for the use of miniatures in D&D, be it theater of the mind, rulers and gridless maps, squares, or even hexes, 5e has something for you.
I don't think you're looking at this the way people who play games, do, though. I don't know of any D&D players, from any edition, who actively look for miniature-based play from D&D, who actively look for a grid/hexes, as a goal in themselves.
I mean, I'm a huge fan of 4E's tactical play, but I'm a fan of the tactical play, not specifically a fan of grids, or minis, or whatever (indeed I hate minis outside of actual boardgames - we use tokens). Do you understand the difference? It's a pretty huge difference. I've never come across a 4E group who were play "because minis" or "because grid" (or "because grid+minis" or whatever). Nor a 3.XE group, for that matter. I know of people who WON'T play a game because it requires minis, but that's a different story.
So I think when you flippantly dismiss 4E-style tactical play, and claim 5E has "something for everyone" because it has rules for mini + grid, I think you're not understanding what people actually want. I think it's a failure of understanding that the leads of the 5E team, particularly Mike Mearls have suffered from, too, so I don't think you're crazy to make it, but it is a failure nonetheless. Even 3.XE/PF fans who like tactical combat stuff will find distinctly less in 5E than 4E.
Basically, 5E did a good job of providing something for perhaps
most D&D groups (given plenty of people played 4E but didn't really get into the tactical combat and so on), but definitely not for everyone by a long stretch. And a large part of the reason why is the faulty logic we see here, which presumes we want minis/grids for minis/grids sake, not minis/grid for tactics sake.
We'd see more of this strange (to me) thinking with the whole "Tactics means facing rules right guys!?" deal later.
2nd Edit - I think the big "Mission Accomplished" (ahem) from this column is providing really strong support for TotM, as that was something that had been on the decline since 3E (indeed, I remember writing rants about how 3E was "forcing" me to use minis/grid back when it had been released!). For the first time, a WotC edition unquestionably supported TotM.