I certainly not arguing taste and I've also gone through ups and downs in my preference for tiny details over time. (though I certainly tend toward up)
My point is not remotely that people are not having a GREAT time with the simplified systems. My point is that, even for those people who love it, I question the longevity.
This is an interesting point.
One thing I noticed recently is the "5E at high level lets me create an uber group that solo monsters cannot handle" posts. I thought about that and I realized that the reason groups can be so uber is that they can control a lot of game elements (advantage, disadvantage, terrain, spells, etc.) that even many of the MM solo monsters cannot. I thought of some ways to counter that, and then I realized that the easiest counters do not exist in the game system.
Disarm and Sunder.
Yes, a battle master fighter can disarm monsters, but monsters cannot disarm PCs.
The high level PC wizard cannot have his uber staff taken away or broken, the high level PC uber damage archer cannot have his bow taken away or broken. There might be a rare monster here or there (e.g. rust monster) that has a special power, but hindering PCs by targeting their tools or armor does not exist for the most part.
It's not that I think that PCs should be severely hindered often by targeting their tools or that it should necessarily be easy to do that, it's that the entire plausible chain of events like "the giant grabs the archer and yanks the bow from his hand" never occurs (shy of house rules or DM fiat). The archer is (more or less) immune to that based on the rules. Back to your point about longevity, I suspect that people will start either going to other more detailed games, or they might start adding in a lot of house rules in 5E to allow for some of these game elements from earlier editions.
In some ways, the very stories that DMs present tend to be confined somewhat by the rules. And there are some things that players want to accomplish that the rules either prevent, or discourage.
