I will say that I think that, ultimately, 5e is quite shallow as a result of both the team's design decisions and the slow pace of content release. I'm sure it's good enough for most players (it's good enough for me most of the time), but I am often left wanting for something more. It's sort of frustrating seeing the game be so hemmed in and reliant on DMs to do so much leg work, while at the same time barely giving us enough resources to easily draw on. Of course I can scavenge from earlier editions or other games or other publishers for settings or puzzles or ideas, but I have to put in a lot of effort to not only discern the bad from the good, but also to introduce this stuff to players who often don't focus on anything except the official stuff. I want more settings that aren't just the standard european fantasy fare (like half of Ravenloft was - ugh, those NPC names).
I hope for an increased pace of content, or a revision to the rules that also comes with a shaking up of design assumptions, but I'm unsure of when that might be. I think it is possible to do something like Games Workshop does with 40k, where there are (increasingly frequent) rules changes that still give backwards compatibility. I would guess that most of the adventures are
backwards edit: forwards compatible, as are the monsters, and I'd wager many of the spells.
Though, I am an accelerationist, so if WotC decides to put 5e into a death spiral of splatbooks and "optional features", I'm all for it. :^)
And that's not to say I don't like 5e. I don't think it's a bad game, but I also don't think it's the best game, or that its growth is fully carried by the rules. But I do think that it has recently had a lot of momentum, through recent events, streaming, media, marketing, its history, and just a greater acceptance of TTRPG in the mainstream.
If you think combat is boring I don’t see why you’d play 5e unless you simply aren’t aware of other systems.
Funny you should say that. I think a lot of people are willing to learn and try new systems, but not a lot of groups are willing to fully put their weight behind those kinds of endeavors when they can "just play D&D". Cost of entry, and all that, plus the opportunity cost if any new game ends up not being as cool or fun as they thought.