I dont use it as a scapegoat at all, theres no reason for that. Warband had mechanics that I absolutely hated and when it was removed in bannerlord, I was incredibly happy about it. I can enjoy the game for its faults, but for the life of me I dont understand why I should when it doesnt make sense to keep it. I want the freedom to pick what I want to without being limited by, no offence taleworld, people who dont play the game. Tonight I played Warband with 1 person without a helmet, 1 person without shoes (and a dress but thats a different story) and 1 person with "proper" equipment. The system allowed each of us to pick what we wanted, while playing the same class. That matters a lot when playing casually. For competitive I enjoy going over the equipment options and seing how we can optimise our setup through drops, which is now almost entirely diminished unless you count swapping classes (which we cant do atm because items on the ground dissapear too fast)
Will it ruin the game for me if the classes stay? Not entirely. It definitly ruins public play more than competitive. Will it massively reduce my enjoyment of the game? Absolutely. I dont want to be Varyag #3 with a fishbanner.
Improvements to the combat will come, we shouldnt expect anything major. Will they re-do animations?Highly doubtfull. Honestly I guarantee more people would return if they removed classes(and note when I say that I mean return to the warband way) than if combat was fixed.
The reason we spend our time on mods for warband is the game is very plain and thats entirely ok, its an ancient game and they were limited back then. That limitation is mostly gone but our product is not only more expensive but more basic and limiting than the older product. Warband didnt have matchmaking, bannerlord will. If/when skins will be sold, its in Taleworlds best interest to keep people playing Native. And, I dont have any coding experience myself, how hard would it be to entirely remove the class system, considering just how vital it is? Classes are not extra, the class system is arguably more important than combat, and this is from a 10 year veteran competitive player.