UngeheuerLich
Legend
The next playtest worked. Are there things that might have been better in the next playtest than in 5e? Probably.And how much of that is down to the god awful execution of the idea as presented in 1DND #6?
That right there is why I say this is a terrible way to do the playtest, because even if they had just reprinted the Next version verbatim, not iterating doesn't actually explore the idea to see if its workable, and popularity doesn't cut it as a shortcut.
Did they deliver the most successful version of D&D by doing that playtest? Yes. They did.
There are people who would say that it was successful despite the bad playtest. I think it was successful because of thw playtest. Because they found a formula that worked for most people although everyone finds something they don't like.
Now the try to get away with some of those choices. But probably, there are diametrically opposed opinions about a few elements.
So the trick might be to make both factions of players by including their prefered option on the least hurting place for the other faction.
Fact is, you can't make everyone happy everywhere, so they settle to make noone sad anywhere.