Oh, they're absolutely not all negative. A legendary armour free from raiding or WvW/PvP as a gatekeep? Great. But the pattern is the usual pattern of MMOs that enter their twilight years. Less actually created systems and innovations, more re-shuffling already existing stuff. More aggressive monetisation, less and weaker/easier content. The addition of dailies and weeklies as a main feature is striking.

The old model not being sustainable has no basis in reality, I feel. GW2 always made a hefty profit, but NCSoft is known for shutting down perfectly viable games for not generating enough profit, e.g. CoH. (Obligatory Fuck NCSoft at this point.) Rebranding their Living World as Mini Expansion and selling them to us at full price is the exact Twilight Years thing to do. Up until today the Cash Shop paid for Living World. But that profit isn't enough profit anymore. Gotta get a slice of that ActiBlizz cake.