Right. They seem to be designing PF2 in a vacuum, overlooking 5e, 13th Age, Dungeon World, and even completely different games like Fate or Cypher.
Games have evolved dramatically since Pathfinder was released, let alone 3e and they seem to be just focusing on evolving the game.
I'm not sure what 5e has to say about it, because, TBH, 5e could have been written in 1992 and it would hardly have been remarkable! DW and FATE are a LOT more like 4e than they are like 5e, so I would say that, if you think PF2 is paying attention to 4e, then it would likely be paying attention to those games as well, at least by my reckoning. I consider 4e to be a heavily story oriented game, although its exposition of that was somewhat poor.
The natural language is the big part for me.
While 5e might say “As an action, you magically do something awesome. Once you do so, you can’t do so again until you complete a short or long rest.”
Meanwhile, 4e and PF2 has a keyword that denotes the action, recharge, and magical nature. You need to know the gaming terms to parse the powers. Looking at PF2 feats reminds me of looking at 4e powers before we knew the context or looking at the 13th Age SRD. I have no idea what they feats actually do, and I cannot decode the content...
4e keywords, IMHO, don't tell you how to parse a power, aside from a few obvious things like damage type (all of which are pretty self-explanatory). Most of what keywords are for is to provide the 'hooks' that you can use to hang other stuff from (IE I can have a feat that interacts with things with the 'necromantic' keyword). 5e, by eschewing this, is a big step backwards in clarity and ease of use in play and for designers. It is actually a considerable turn off in my book. When I play (which I do much more often than I read a book) I want CLARITY and brevity, so I can quickly and reliably understand what the thing is getting at.
The Red Queen’s Race is something 5e also avoids, as bonus to attacks and skills are an actual bonus. 3e/ PF/ and 4e has assumed bonuses, so you had to keep pace with the default expectations of AC, skills DCs, and the like or you fell behind. So bonuses didn’t actually increase your odds of success but just allowed you to keep pace. It’s basically just number porn. (And PF2 seems to be doubling down in that regard.)
1e and 2e also had increasing odds of success, so they’re more like 5e in that regard. Bonuses for the illusion of progress is very much a 3e/4e thing.
I disagree, all editions of D&D assume increasing adds to the die roll (or in the case of AD&D decreasing THAC0 scores and saves, which is the same thing). You fall behind in 5e just as you would in any other E, or tread water. That's the whole D&D paradigm. Now, the differences in levels is not a difference in MATH, there's no reason to change working math, its a change in thematics, tone, and play. In 1e and 2e the game becomes crazier and more dominated by powerful spells and items, with monster lore graduating from your foes being 'an orc' to 'Demogorgon Prince of Demons'.
In 4e there is the same sorts of progressions, but the powers are more tightly controlled and its the thematics of the characters that goes crazy (you become Rachitoff the Daggermaster, Thief of Legend). I like the way 4e handles this.
3.x basically just had "its broken at level 12" (assuming your players were polite enough to wait that long, or that the DM heavily restricted play and/or some combination of these things). Most games which operated at double-digit levels simply had an unwritten set of 'rules' that players went by. Nominally it tried to do what 4e actually did successfully, by having things like PrCs and such.
5e is mostly like AD&D in this regard, EXCEPT, its attempt to 'make bonuses not matter' actually messed up the part that worked well in AD&D! That is the thematic progression from orcs to demons. Now its unclear exactly when each creature really IS thematically appropriate, although orcs are still basically not a threat to higher level PCs. It seems like a 'worst of all worlds' solution to me.
I think the precise language, coupled with transparent math, and remarkable distribution of thematic weight and plot power over all classes are a hallmark of 4e. Epic works. It is still crazy in good ways, and more challenging to run well, but it hangs together.