Every single edition in the end, failed. None of them are "evergreen" products. None of them managed to stay in print.
I mean yeah the comments from the average gamer who didn't like 4e are very vague. And I can see how this can be frustrating.
But I don't think they can be dismissed. Even if they can't really articulate anything more than "just didn't like something about it".
So all editions fail. But at least WotC considers 4th Edition a greater failure than the others.
Just two years after release, they tried to redefine the game with Essentials
The vagueness is frustrating. But doesn't even come close to the aggravation caused by the outright lies spread about 4e in internet discussions.
3.0 only lasted three years. But as far as I know, D&D was not being judged against a $50 million target. 4e was. Older editions just had to make a profit.
Oh, and with dates from wiki, 4e isn't lasting a whole lot worse than 3.X. Wizards started developing 3e in 1997, for 2000 publication. They published 3.5 in 2003. And two years after that they started developing 4e.
But you can't count 3.0 and 3.5 as different editions but treat 4th and Essntials as the same.
I am suspicious of anyone who claims to have a better metric for how well-designed a game is than public perception of said game.
And once again... people completely miss or ignore the intention of a thread and go off to complain/debate about 3E & 4E, making the same tired arguments that have been made for years.
It's really not that hard to understand, people...
Hussar's entire point was that if you're going to claim some aspect of the rules from one of the D&D editions does not work well and should not be adapted to 5E... back up your argument with evidence.
THAT'S IT. END OF STORY.
If you can't do that... then obviously your argument is invalid.