And a likely clinically insane, teenage, illiterate, peasant girl swung the tide of The Hundred Years War by repeatedly charging fortified English positions (which should have been an absolute death sentence) bulwarked by the French zealouts WHO ACTUALLY BELIEVED SHE WAS SENT FROM GOD TO ENSURE CONTINUED FRENCH HEREDITARY RIGHT TO THE THRONE.
Humans are UNBELIEVABLY irrational. And the fact that lots and lots together can believe something or convince themselves of something isn’t interesting. It’s rote human conditioning (and has evolved to become advantageous when facing acute selection pressures).
So the fact that a lot of players who have played D&D for awhile and have internalized a paradigm, or casual players who want a low overhead entry point like vanilla Fighter design isn’t persuasive of any thing in discussions like this. Mearls et al may have to consider that data when discussion design impetus, but we (here on these boards) aren’t constrained by such things. We can discuss design implications on various components of actual play and be unmoored by the signal of (likely cognitive bias-driven) social data. So continuously bringing things up like that (eg “I’m in the majority and your interests are minority!”) are neither interesting nor persuasive to someone like me. They only serve to stifle conversation insofar as I get bored of dealing with that refrain...over...and over...and over...and over...and just check out of conversations (or engaging the board wholesale).