At this point its pretty obvious what a good chunk of the problem is.

The developers have their heads shoved even further up their rears than is normal and its being kept there by a whole lot of arrogance. Removing existing systems without simultaneously adding an equivalent is asking for problems. Doing that after recieving effectively unanimous (not counting the rather obvious sock puppet accounts defending this change) negative feedback about it is worse. Going through all that then reverting it in a later patch instead of immediately? Well that is pretty much the developers being pentulant children. They knew the idea wasn’t viable. They were told that it wasn’t viable on the beta. They still did it anyway. It takes certain amount of focused stupidity and arrogance to pull that off.

This is where competent managers are a godsend. A competent manager looks at the situation, sees that the problem is people-related, then has the relevant people brought into his/ her office for emergency head-rear seperation surgery. Then sends the patients back to their desk with a new pillow in the form of a folder labeled “Performance Improvement Program”. And a massively reduced ego.

Sadly I suspect we will find few if any competent managers at Funcom.