D&D 5E Rangers - any news?

[Jester David]

This is true…if the lesser crunch is priced/sold accordingly. That’s really my big problem here, if Wizards wants to make fewer monsters or less crunch, that’s on them, but my frustration stems from the fact that they essentially sell it bundled with stuff I don’t want. If they had a Volo’s-lite where I could just buy the monster section alone I’d already own it.

The whole point with books like SCAG or VGtM is getting one book to a larger audience. Rather than release two books to disparate audiences with different tastes (and thus splitting profits while having higher production costs) they release one hybrid book to both.

And Volo is currently 39% off on Amazon. I doubt you'll find it for a lower price.

I suspect we have wildly different viewpoints and experiences then, as this beggars disbelief from my camp.

And yet it's true.

Because of one of the sections, the "villains" behind the primary metaplot in my sandbox was established, and because of inspiration from the lair section of the monster their whole motivation was established. Because of those ten pages, the background events of my campaign were set, changing how one of the sessions played out entirely while also leading to the introduction of a couple NPCs that are major foils to the game.
And then, in the last session, because of the hag section I introduced a manipulative hag that's set to potentially have an interesting effect on the campaign and has already altered how one character is going to be roleplayed. All because VGtM presents the, as tempers and corruption.

Zero mechanics and it's changed what the campaign will look like in the end and the experiences of my players.

This part is just disingenuous though. No, while lore and story are integral parts of the game, they do not brush off the mechanics to the sidelines. What constitutes a ‘tough’ monster? Is it one with high HP/AC? Strong Regen? Multiple lives/phases? All of these can lead to radically different fights and experiences with the game, which is no less important or desirable than having a well fleshed out world and story.

Sure. But you could easily have the brute, skirmisher, and artillery monsters. Have their set stat blocks with a chart of hit points per level and then just an assortment of abilities you can slot it.
"Pick any one for a mook, two for a tough creature, three for a mini-boss, and four for a big boss."
Reflavour as needed.
But that's boring as eff.

For those of us without the time to homebrew new systems/classes/subclasses, this is undesirable. Also somewhat misses the point, for those of us who want to maximize rules expansion in a book that speculatively will be about exactly that, then the profusion or absence of 3rd party material is irrelevant, in the same way that Tome of Beasts being released didn’t make me less disappointed in Volo’s.

WotC no longer seems interested in doing the endless waves of splatbooks. That seems unlikely to change. If that's not what you want, you're going to have to look elsewhere.
Since you want heaping piles of new crunch, I recommend backing the Midgard kickstarter by Kobold Press with it's big book of 5e mechanics:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/350683997/midgard-campaign-setting-dark-roads-and-deep-magic

$19 for the PDF or $40 for the hardcover. Most of the options in the Heroes Handbook were published earlier, and have undoubtedly been revised based on feedback and play.

You mean aside from their many years working in the hobby and their larger playtesting capability? And yeah, they dropped the ball in a couple of places (ranger, elements monk etc.) but I doubt 5e would be seeing this resurgence if the product wasn’t noteworthy.

The catch is, WotC only has time to playtest because they're not releasing lots of crunch. They're spending two years on the new subclasses. They sent out some of the initial wave of new subclasses to the private playtesters early last year. Because it takes months to adequately test that content.
You show me a book that's 250 pages of pure crunch and more options than the PHB and I'll show you a book that takes four years to adequately playtest.

How much stuff was playtested during 3e/4e? Pretty much exactly as much as is playtested in the DMsGuild. Except, Guild authors can adjust or tweak their documents based on feedback. And many do playtest their content as well. And people are more likely to post when it' finished, not based on a publishing deadline to get books in stores.
When you're looking at a professional stuff on the Guild, it's arguably better than some of the official 3e/4e content in terms of quality.

The difference is that the subclasses for martials tend to change the gameplay more radically than casters, which off come off as simply having a different coat of paint. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see a storm cleric be uninterested in playing a nature cleric in a subsequent campaign.

Unless you're just doing extended dungeon crawls, you're only in combat for half to a third of a game session.

I could probably play happily play a mechanically identical character to a previous character, if I could roleplay them radically different. Because the tactics and final story would be different. To say nothing of magical items and the like.
The human red dragon sorcerer that's a noble and is snobbish and condescending to the party but graceful in high court and is always immaculately dressed and using prestidigitation to clean their clothes is a completely different character from the human red dragon sorcerer that's an outlander who lives off the land in simple clothes, esches material wealth, and views their magic as a curse. Even if they're mechanically identical save backgrounds (and thus a skill proficiency or two).