People hate Known spells. Prepared spells is objectively superior and it's been a really common request on sites like D&D Beyond and Reddit for them to transition to Prepared casting.
Some people hate Known Spells - and others hate
too few known spells but are more than fine if there are
enough known spells. The Sorcerer was literally invented to be a Known Spells class because some people really wanted it to exist. But the implementation of Known Spells at the launch of 5e was obviously terrible because the known spells casters knew fewer spells than the prepared casters could have prepared at any one time. So people wanted it changed - and these calls to have it changed have almost vanished since Tasha's put in good sorcerer subclasses and brought the ranger up to four rather than two spells per spell level known.
So what you are saying here is that because some people like crunchy peanut butter and others like smooth peanut butter we should listen only to the people who like crunchy and erase smooth from existence based on there having been a few jars of rancid smooth peanut butter. Rather than have some classes (e.g. the Paladin) having prepared casting and others (e.g. the Ranger) having known spells.
Making abilities that consume spell slots might as well be the same thing as making a new spell.
No it isn't. Or more accurately
for people who don't care and think that all magic is fine they are the same thing. For those who don't like Everything Is A Spell then they mostly aren't.
People know what the Knights Templar are. And forest rangers equivalent class in D&D having a mystical connection in a fantasy world where nature is magical is logical.
You can have a mystical connection without being loaded down with spells.
All editions before 5e managed to have very few ranger spells per day.
Also, the idea that Divine Soul Sorcerers are D&D's version of real world priests/clergy is funny.
That's because you're inventing something I didn't say.
If we look at e.g. WoW or Final Fantasy the clerical healer, whether White Robe or Priest wears cloth armour. That's the archetype that needs covering - either by adapting the cleric to an unarmoured variant or taking the Divine Soul sorcerer that's already unarmoured (and is already a Spells Known class so it covers things the cleric doesn't).
I think that changing the cleric class to not automatically get proficiency with weapons and armor would be a good move to further separate the thematic and mechanical niches of paladins and clerics and also make clerics fit real-world priests better.
It would also divorce the Cleric from literally every previous D&D edition. Before 4e all clerics in all basic books (there were some specialty exceptions in splatbooks) were proficient with all armour. Meanwhile for weapon proficiency the cleric only gets simple weapons by default - which is only a slightly larger list than the wizard. This also goes back throughout the history of D&D.