Another thing I noticed is getting more common among RPG Horror Stories. When once it was common to see entitled players complaining the GM is not running the game like Matt Mercer runs on Critical Role, I have lately seen quite few stories where problem GM tries to use that to deflect criticism. It’s usually the type to be acting creepily towards women, both in and out of game, enjoying juvenile, overtly edgy humor and/or insisting of all kinds of bigotry for “historical accurracy”. And when the players confront him (as it’s almost always a guy) about it, he’s going to say something like “Stop sucking Mercer off, this is real D&D!” or “Go play at Matt Mercer’s table, if you don’t like it!”.
While, as usual, there is possibility these stories are fake, I can see these being true - the kind to engage in those specific behaviors is also the kind to grab on buzzwords or try to twist real problems to deflect criticism.
They only just recently made an adventure catering to high level characters. 2E, 3E offered stats, so clearly they intended there to be a path.
It’s clearly not a priority if they’re only just doing it in 5e. They expect most players to play in a crapsack world and leave it a crapsack world. After all, if it wasn’t a crapsack world there’d be no need for heroes, and they want a persistent world instead of having it always end after the players finish their campaign and fix it.