Well, yes. That is why I said you'd have to ask yourself.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
"Big Tent: a group or organization that has a widely inclusive composition or character"
A big tent is a place that allows for lots of different kinds of people. The big tent is a place where two people of highly different outlooks can coexist. The big tent gives you the basics of what you need, while allowing you room to be yourself.
The Big Tent Game idea arose in a specific context, and if you leave that behind, miss the point of it, and ensure your disappointment. The point arose in the wake of the 3e/4e edition wars - the idea was to produce a game that 3e players would find good enough, and 4e players would find good enough.
Just like you - which is why I thought those things were interesting - it isn't your favorite game, but you can agree upon it enough to play it and have fun!
That, right there, is the essence of the big tent - not that each and every one of us will find everything we want - but that each of us can find enough of what we want to still have fun. It is about the essence of the overall experience, not about the details.
And, I think they honestly believed that, at the time. I think that was the plan. But no plan survives contact with reality intact. Reality is, they can't produce all those things, but keep the game scope and publication cycle down to sustainable rates.
When "a lot of people" seems to be "more than at any time since the 1980s"... yeah. Because you probably don't get that many people who are all the same type. That many people, your game has to be pretty cross-niche.
Well enough that they can agree to play it, yes. That's the key you seem to be missing, though you yourself attest to having done it. Gaming is a social activity. And in very few social activities does everyone get exactly what they want. The key to successful social activity is compromise - nobody gets everything they want, but everyone gets enough of what they want. That's sustainable.
I think, then, that you completely misunderstand what UA is, and what its playtest material represents. It is NOT a statement of where they are going. It is an EXPERIMENT - they demonstrably listen to the playtest feedback, and adjust plans accordingly.
As noted above - they have already delivered the big tent.
Also, related, I think you may have forgotten one of the biggest lessons of RPG history - Do. Not. Split. Your. Audience. Build a game where disparate individuals can go off and play in their little, insular corners, and your audience is split. Each sub-group will expect full support for its little niche, and as we have seen, that's not viable. A successful Big Tent game keeps us all together, rather than sending us off into little sub-groups.
Here, you say they aren't willing to iterate and innovate, but when they do experiments in UA, you get "worried" about "statements". You do realize that this kind of approach makes it impossible to please you?
By the way - history: in the time it has taken Pathfinder to get around to doing one major overhaul of its core, D&D has done two. If your takeaway is that Pathfinder is more willing to experiment... well, you take that away, then.
