But I think the loudest complaints come from those who don't play or are otherwise unhappy in general with the game. Not those who love it, but don't like x or y.
I will bet a tooth that a hefty number of those who took said survey don't currently play 4e.
Finding out from people who aren't playing your game precisely why they aren't playing your game so you can improve it and possibly expand your base of customers is rather important, especially in a highly fragmented market.
This. When "improving" the game to capture a small segment of customers would cause a much larger segment of current customers to lose interest, it's not really improvement at all.If you have 90% market share, I doubt you care just how fragmented the remaining 10% is.
I believe the decision to add fluff was based (at least partially) on an online survey a few months back that first asked a number of questions to gauge your overall interest and investment in 4e (including previous MMs). Presumably, they'd be paying a lot of attention to the differences between what current customers were saying, and detractors were saying.Except that there's no winning some detractors. For instance, Fluff in the MM is not going to make anyone not play 4e.
There's a difference between Constructive criticism feedback and "Oh my god I hate everything about it". And again, I think that the latter are who's going to be generating the most negative feedback.
It's purely an self-central view thing. If it's not useful TO ME, then it's a waste (for me). I want what I WANT. I don't CARE what other people want. ME ME ME ME ME. I am paying my money for less.