Sword of Spirit
Legend
Could very well work that way, yes! I was thinking that very thing.
For me, finding certain 4e sub-systems familiar from other game - in particular, from another game I particularly liked - was enough to slide it under the 'acceptable' line. But, if you /played/ other games, but kept expectations about D&D compartmentalized from those experiences, or, if you /tried/ other games, and didn't much care for them, any familiarity gained with their innovations would be meaningless (or, in the latter case, a negative) if D&D later copied them.
Keeping my D&D expectations compartmentalized from my other role-playing is the only reason I play D&D. I think classes, levels, and probably a couple other fundamentals are Stone Age tech. I run 5e exclusively because it better meets my D&D positive expectations, while minimizing my negative ones, than any other edition. 4e didn’t work for me as a game system on a couple of different levels, and dozens of different major points, despite enjoying some elements of it (such as at-will magic and fighters with cool abilities that let them easily push people around in battle); but where it failed for me most was in meeting the D&D expectations that I cared about.