D&D 5E Sword Coast book - not really a campaign setting? And some speculations about the future

[Mistwell]

I don't know, is WotC really a company that's just poking around in the dark to see what works? They don't know what their own fans want?

I don't think that's a particularly fair characterization of what I said. They know a starting basis of what fans want, but then they survey and playtest and try new concepts as they go to see how those changes work out, what's liked and disliked, what tweaks seem to work best, what influences gameplay the best, etc.. This is a pretty mature type thing for a company to do - it's how bigger companies with successful brands operate. It's not "poking around in the dark", but instead the opposite - always making concise highly informed and educated changes and testing them to see how they work out before making the next concise and educated change.