Honestly, I think TaleWorlds have made more of an effort to communicate with the Bannerlord community lately and that is good. Long overdue and much needed... but still good.
However, I think that lots of people here are not being unreasonable with their expectations for the game - and I think this is where we may disagree - but let me tell you why....
Has also been on my mind - there seems to have been a turning point after MostBlunted's final verdict (his ban). Things turned sour and nearly turned into a revolution.
Dev involvement has increased since then - and the General Discussion threads are seemingly calmer now then they were right after.
I think the vast majority of the community here would be super happy if TW could just add into Bannerlord, the features of good old Warband (or at least Warband with some of the most famous mods).
Yes! But, and I'm speculating here, I think they want to keep the game, not stale but, easy to transform. Once they have a good working platform they could turn it into a multitude of games. As a dev company they are now incredible vulnerable, they only have 1 product. If a direct competitor hit the market, they would be in danger. They need to churn out more games, preferable different branches.
And they could always develop DLC's or let modders get at it for additional content. Perhaps sell "creator content packs" for consoles like Paradox does so well (no mod-workshops on consoles).
Honestly, if they would commit to doing something like that - then 90 percent of the negativity here would disappear overnight. And, for the most part, adding those features would be relatively simple. And yeah sure, this would need more time... but I think after waiting this long, most people in the community would happily wait.
Will this happen? No. Sadly not. I think a lot of Warband features will have to be modded into Bannerlord to give it some soul and depth.
Commitment is scary. Especially for a company with "growing pains". Startups who made it occasionally still have a c'est la vie attitude. Plans dont get thought out - they've worked from experience and in a ''practical'' way without the theoretical base that should validate that practicality.
So features that used to be brainstormed over a beer in the pub on a tuesday night still get done in that way (sort of speak) and while one plan might collide with another - they still do it, because "it was a good idea, so why not."
There is a lack of focus (especially with "specialists"), the director who was once in the mud at the frontline with the troops occasionally returns to it because thats where he's most comfortable. He, in heart, is still a specialist, while he needs to be a generalist, someone overseeing processes, plans and has to steer the ship and keep focus on its end-goal.
You can tell that TW does not have that captain. The captain is not at his desk, navigating, looking at provisions, managing profits. Hes on deck, not navigating, not steering, not maintaining focus and managing goals and targets. Because thats where he's most comfortable. Thats what he knows.
Companys like TW cross my desk a lot of times. We help them, they grow. But if the captain does not want to be helped (im not the problem, management is lazy!), then the company's in trouble and the ship will go down in red numbers.
EDIT; Got carried away, lost sight of your post.
Commitment is scary, because they have no focus. Specialists never do - they need to be steered or endless side-tracking happens. But by who? Who can be the captain?