It may be that the original poster did not mean it, but the whole comment just felt like a passive-agressive attack.
But it will be a pleasure to respond to your perfectly reasonable and insightful post
As I see it, WotC's current business model for D&D is to sell the core rulebooks and a few supplements, and try to motivate third parties to publish supplements and adventures through the strict rules of the GSL.
When that market dries up (let's say every 5-8 years), then it is time to redesign the game and publish a new edition, starting the cycle again.
Now, in this business model, supporting previous editions would be a very bad idea (since it would theoretically eat through the sales of the current edition)
However, let's say that WotC decides to switch models, and take a "Hasbro approach" (that has been selling the same Risk and Monopoly games for decades, with very minor variants)
In this approach, design and development freezes to a halt and instead Hasbro publishes three different games, each on a single boxed set:
"Dungeons and Dragons Classic" a cleaned up version of AD&D 1st and 2nd editions
"Dungeons and Dragons Worldmaker" a revamped and rebalanced version of 3E, with expanded world-creation rules.
"Dungeons and Dragons Epic Heroes" a cleaned up and errataed 4E
Additional cashflow that would usually come from new versions of the game would instead be generated from the sale of supplements that would support all editions, like miniatures, and dungeon tiles. Also, D&Di would provide support for all three games, with additional content for the different product lines.
Now, this is not to say I would take this path if it were up to me....
)
