The elephant in the room is that GGG has only 1 competent lead, and he is needed in POE 2. Which is why Mark has to stop working on POE 1.
Ever since Chris Wilson fucked off and Mark took over POE 1 has gotten way better. I expect POE 2 to get way better too with Mark's increased involvement, provided Jonathan doesn't fuck him.
You mean worse. POE1 got shit precisely because they started to listen to shitty reddit feedback that only wants two things:
1. More loot.
2. More power.
POE2 was born mostly from Chris idea that POE1 was shit now due to balance changes and "community" not being able to move from idiotic pathway as every balance patch trying to reign in loot or power made those people go apeshit.
That's when he started to push for those balance patches that went nowhere, ruthless and so on in preparation of POE2.
And he won. 0.1 version of unfinished game is more liked that finished POE1. Of my old POE1 guard who stopped playing almost all of them are back. Some stopped like me as we want to wait for proper 1.0 but POE2 has "it" that POE1 lost around 5-7 years ago.