Not all players, certainly, but some folks, like I said above, mostly only care about the power fantasy and showing off. These folks don't want to be below strength and, yes, don't care about the consequences.
And yet every other company makes smaller, less financially successful RPGs than D&D, and many of them have been doing so for quite some time. WotC's way is not just the nature of it.
I think the idea is not that they don't care about anything. It's that what they care about is kicking butt at full power and looking awesome. Doing that most efficiently in the current system requires long rests after every significant engagement.
The ones who control the money make the decisions, and they care about profit most. They can listen to others with different priorities, but are under no obligation to do what they say.
I would happily use maps and minis more if they took less time to set up and take down. But I play (mostly) in meatspace, so that's not usually going to happen.
Not in my experience. Many players are quite passive and prefer to wait for the GM to give them somewhere to go and something to do. I wish I had your experience, but I don't.
Players do want success, however, and power IMO.
I'm a technical person. If the PC is given the opportunity to take an additional action beyond what the rules allow, it's a houserule, and one that potentially gives the PCs more power in the moment than the rules would normally allow. Looking at it differently doesn't change that.
If you're a corporation that only cares about short term profit? Yes, absolutely. Consequences are for whoever takes my job after I deploy the golden parachute.
I think most people would drop bows once firearms become relatively commonplace, so this isn't an issue for me. Slow cannon fire is just how it is (although I'm not above some degree of abstraction here).
Understandable. I don't generally concern myself with heroics, and am actually excited about all those things being invented in a fantasy world. To each their own, right?
Fair enough. I'll stick to my first obstacle then. A lot of people seem to like casting spells a lot, and cutting number of slots in half will probably make them unhappy.
Not an issue for me, but I'm trying to think about people with different preferences.