Which polls? Where? Here? WotC's site? At ALL the popular D&D forums in general?
In any case, not it's not really all that accurate. A poll measures the mood of those who CHOOSE to respond. So it's the measure of those with the strongest opinions and ONLY for those who visit that particular site and vote in that poll. Too, the various L&L polls are widely percieved as... not well-crafted. They seem to be of of the pattern of, "Here's several paragraphs describing some idea we have, here's a poll which is not meant to get you thinking or measure your mood so much as to convince you our idea or implementation is right and to not agree would be obviously wrong."
They can't. Squeaky wheels get the grease.
Very much true. For a design team that supposedly wants to capture the best of all editions I haven't seen them establish any kind of presence on, say, Dragonsfoot to ferret out the opinion of what the fans of those older editions REALLY think are the valuable parts that need to be brought forward, not just the opinions of fans of the current edition, or those most active in discussions about the next edition.
In some measure that's YOUR fault. Those who sit at home and silently, happily play the edition that's in their hands are NOT who they need to design for and sell to. They need to design for and sell to the ones who ACTIVELY care about the direction the game is pushed in. The ones who SEEK to voice their opinion and have it affect the next edition. The ones who will invest emotionally and monetarily in 5E, not just say, "meh," and go back to thier 3E-4E game anyway.
It's actually less about age in itself but of who will buy it - who has the money and desire to spend and keep spending? It may suck but it is THOSE people WotC wants to bring together and shout from the hilltops that 5E is now the One True Edition and all the others were just beta tests.
they won't. If your friends want to be heard they have to PARTICIPATE in the conversation to start with. Visit the forums. FIND and then vote on the polls. Form opinions and PUBLICLY be able to defend them/ convince others. Don't wait for the designers to knock on your door and ask you what you want. Talking on WotC forums or even other D&D forums that WotC is paying at least SOME attention to will get you far more effective results than talk just at your game table. Joining the open beta will get you a direct line to them as they are actively asking you then for your feedback. 'Course, by then they're really working on fine tuning what they've already got rather than determining the general direction they should be going in the first place.
