Actually we don't know that either as @Incenjucar could be talking about the cost of printing when they say "money." As far as I can tell that has nothing to do with the optimist-pessimist scale. There are lots of ways "money" can impact decisions, that is why I asked.
Not at all. I don't need to know how Bullywugs, Beholders or Mind Flayers fit into the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk or Dragonlance settings. But I do need to know from a generic monster manual is what their culture/society is like, their attitudes towards others, their religions/faith, what they are (more relevant to undead, outsiders or aberrations), any racial goals...etc.
I'm largely on the same page as you, but there's certainly room for where the stuff that would spark your interest to learn more/everything that's been written about a creature or faction also unfortunately happens to be the stuff missing from this specific entry.
Definitely a fuzzy line. I feel 2e lore bled pretty freely between lore and description, but that could be my own bias.
That all sounds very setting specific to me. I mean you could provide generic lore of that type, but it can equal be setting specific too. Culture and society are definitely setting dependent. Eberron, for example, has a different take on these traits for many creatures when compared to FR, GH, or DL. The same with faith. I mean not all settings share the same gods even. Similarly the "racial goals," and I am not even sure that is a thing, could easily vary from setting to setting. IMO, those are not setting agnostic lore elements if they should be changing depending on the setting. Heck the same setting is likely to have monsters with multiple types of culture, societies, religions, relationships and goals. We just need to look around IRL to see the truth of that!
I am a pessimist when it comes to corporate decision-making. My opinion is that the WotC brass were concerned that any lore they provide could be taken poorly by some loud segment of the population and garner them bad press through the usual social media outlets (as every choice they make is seen and publicly and globally judged), so they decided to minimize lore in any areas their consultants saw as potential flashpoints of dissent and fill the space with additional statblocks and tables.
So you’d like a Monster Manual with 100 monsters in it?
No. Just a little more information than we are given.
OK, so for you "money" = marketing / PR. The idea of avoiding losing money (from bad PR) over gaining money (from more detail, depth, quantity, etc). So in this case, you believe the money calculus was more lore could create bigger loses than gains.
Money is basically what conflicts with design. Focus testing, determination that the number of monster statblocks increases sales, hoping to sell lore seperately, page count, people love to roll dice so give them tables instead of commas, CEOs saying kids hate words these days, etc.
