4Essentials Hexblade was a very effective Gish and was able to do Pact blades of each different type of Pact - even more than one for some types, like we had both an Excalibur-esque Pact Blade for Hexblades with Archfey Pacts of the Lady of the White Well, and an Icy Rapier Pact Blade for Hexblades that made their Archfey Pact with the Prince of Frost.
Hexblade in 5e is locked into the Gloom Pact / Shadowfell Pact "Frostmourne-Hungers" flavour by explicitely tying all Hexblades to the Shadowfell, and that was because it was an inelegant solution to Pact of the Blade being underpowered and not doing what people wanted it to do. I could see a 5.5e Warlock having Hexblade-type options built into Pact of the Blade, but each of the other three Pact Boons would have to be made much more robust as well to be comparable.
Just for some background,. 4Essentials had Original Warlock, Binder, and Hexblade - each able to explore different Pacts. Binder had a bit of Tomelock's shtick in terms of being a more Intelligent, almost Wizardly warlock, but functionally was more like Pact of the Chains in terms of summoning and binding spirits. Original Warlock was trying to do multiple things too, so they merged Hexblade and Binder into the Original Warlock, and split the Binder up into two separate Pact Boons. Pact of the Talisman had no equivalent in 4e.
I would be very upset if all Warlocks were now Hexblades. That isn't what people want out of a Warlock. I don't think that's happening. I also don't think they're turning Hexblade into a core class feature of the Warlock in 2024, since the Rules Expansion set is supposed to complement both the 2014 rules and the 2024 rules. They're not going to replace something from Xanathar's Guide with the new PHB.