Yeah, but who gives a crap about "rules design"? Is the game fun? Then people will play it.Capitalistic markets don't work like that in practice. Once the market leader entrenches themselves and manages to establish themselves in the consumers' minds as the "default", or as a "prestige brand", then familiarity, over quality, becomes the primary determinant of success. Remember five years ago when everybody was going crazy over Beats by Dr. Dre? Even though those headphones were overpriced for their actual sound quality? Though Beats ended up being bought and cannibalized by Apple, and now it's all about Airpods.
I can say with utmost confidence in a vacuum, looking solely at the rules design, that Stars Without Number, Lancer, and Blades in the Dark are far better games than D&D. But Kevin Crawford, Massif Press, and Evil Hat all don't have the level of financial resources or the existing fan base for their brand that WotC has for D&D. In this market it takes money to make money, and right now WotC has the lion's share of the money.
But that's not really what this whole thread is about. What this thread is really about is EGO. All the people who prefer games other than 5E have their egos bruised because THEIR game that THEY think is superior is not seen in the same light as 5E. THEY think 5E isn't worth all the cache it gets, and it kills them that THEIR choice of game gets nothing.
If they have a hard time getting people to play THEIR game, because everybody else wants to play 5E? Well, maybe, just maybe... THEY don't do a good enough job of showing all their friends why the game THEY like is better than D&D. If THEY could actually get across all the points of favor for their game... maybe more people would play it. But if not... I think they're afraid it says more about THEM as players and cheerleaders than it does WotC.
I mean, I understand why they wish to blame WotC and the D&D game because they are unable to convince people their game of choice is better. And I'm sure it hurts to know that other people just don't see the same "brilliance" that they do. But you know what? Too bad.