To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, there have been many polls dropped by fans in the forum (myself included) where roughly 85-90% of fans want buffs to spears and to restore the "non-silly" infantry AI that can deal with cavalry charges. There are others where 70% of fans want a complete revamp of the mass combat system to make it more realistic. Also 88-94% of the fans want player control of unit weapon use - which is currently hard-coded into the AI and unmoddable. 95% of fans want a "focus fire" command for ranged troops. To say nothing of how
18.1% of fans "still have hope in TW."
Speaking personally, I will not play this game again until spearmen in shieldwalls are viable. As it stands, spearmen are the worst melee units - even against cavalry - and loose formation is always the best defensive tactic because of collision/physics/AI issues... which is very immersion-breaking to anyone with an understanding of military history. Shieldwalls were an integral part of medieval warfare (which is why so many fans were happy to see them implemented in WB Floris and VC) and it's very frustrating that MB doesn't attempt to simulate them.
I remember distinctly how frustrated many of us were when the first few patches after EA release didn't capture the prevailing complaints in the forum. The fact that nerfs were applied to economic systems like workshops/caravans and xp gain in autobattle/arena felt like insults because none of us had seen complaints about exploits but all of us had seen complaints about armor, siege AI and unit formations. The following year of minor +1/-1 tweaks to things like armor or weapon performance was aggravating when - for instance - a consistent complaint has been that armor is underpowered across-the-board.
Aside from bugs and unimplemented features, there are genuine concerns in the fanbase that TW's vision of what BL should look like is fundamentally different from ours. It sounds like most fans want a game that is moderately realistic but geared towards fun that rewards smart tactics and allows players to make a significant impact on the game world through dedicated effort.
However, it feels like TW's vision is more along the lines of an MMO than an immersive RPG: it feels like situations where AI lords and bandit hideouts respawn with extreme speed after destruction are intentional introductions of grind into the game so the player will never get bored from "having nothing to do". Whether or not this is the intention, one of the consistent points cited by fans complaining that BL has no "soul" is that the constant barrage of "things to do" make it feel like the player has no impact on the gameworld at all without relentless grinding. This is especially the case where there does not appear to be any way for the player to reduce the linear growth of bandit parties in the lategame - except by constantly farming them (which gets extremely boring).
Another point in the "no soul" criticism is how gaming lord relationship was a critical part of Warband but is virtually absent in BL. Nearly all of the intrigues of steadily increasing or decreasing relation with allies/spouses/rivals/lieges has been abstracted into the Influence and persuasion minigame mechanics - which feel flat and boring.
Then there's my personal bete noir: I am extremely frustrated that the leveling mechanics for personality traits and noncombat skills (which are integral parts of the already-flat persuasion minigame) are grindy and kind of broken. For instance, the only way to level Calculating to 1 is to convince FIFTY AI clans to join your faction. Also, in order to level Roguery to 275, the player must
kill 1.2 million peasants or annihilate 20,000 caravans. I really can't understand the apparent lack of consideration for the sheer staggering scale of grind it takes to level most skills to a workable level and the somewhat-dismissive attitude of TW to issues like this are a serious source of fan frustration.
Most RPG fans want RPG features and it's very disheartening to see large holes in noncombat RPG elements consistently put on the backburner in favor of focusing on minor tweaks to combat mechanics. It was also depressing to watch the
only mod to deal with personality issues be abandoned by its creator because it's apparently impossible to mod personality XP gain.