@Snarf Zygag
What I am saying is that is not popular because it satisfies disparate tastes, but because it satisfies a specific set of widely held expectations phenomenally well. The same way Call of Duty does or CSI does. Fast and the Furious is another good example.
But ... no. It doesn't. Look at your repeated requests for play examples!
How many times have you seen people in these threads argue/discuss about playing 5e?
About whether they should play by the book, or not?
About ToTM, or grid?
About playing it as primarily a combat game, or a narrative game?
About the amount of control given to the DM or the players?
I could keep going on, but I will repeat two examples I have seen recently:
In the first, 5e was played with a beautiful, set-piece battle that took up the whole gaming session. It had miniatures, and a giant table with an intricately constructed village, and it was amazing ... but pretty darn close to a wargame (and with optional flanking rules, measurements for area spells, etc.).
In the second, it was a complete narrative (TOTM) game; the players were establishing large parts of the "world" while they were playing, and "control" was easily ceded between the DM and the players; dice rolling was minimal.
Both of those were obviously D&D, and obviously 5e. The groups had taken the game in disparate directions, but, and this is key, this is one of the major defining features of 5e. When I hear people say, "But the game is only the rules," I get a little weirded out, because it's so much more- it's the people, the community that grows up around the rules. And that's what 5e is. It is a "big tent" that allows for a multitude (heteroglossia) of playstyles. There are many other games that are incredible, but these incessant demands to look at the "system" misses the forest for the trees.
And I am done with the issue. As I said, I respect your position, we just disagree.* And there will not be agreement, which is, again, okay!
*EDIT: Seriously. You have a well-thought out position that you have clearly considered, and you assert it in good-faith. I have nothing bad to say, I just have a different position.