Of course you'd rather see more game, you're not a mainstream gamer. DF is a niche game and the more complex and complicated it gets (and it definitely won't get any simpler any time soon) the more of a niche game it'd be. I understand Toady doesn't want to "sell out" his vision or anything but for the immense amount of profit he'd make on a mainstream DF game (I could easily see it on the level of, say, Civ 2) he could spend the rest of his days making some tangled nightmare of a game however he wants in the lap of luxury and never have to worry about money again. I'm sure he has his reasons but the decision to move away from something marketable just baffles me.
Civ2 isn't a mainstream game, it's just a very popular niche game with a broad niche. And it has been selling out, Civ2 was the most popular, but the directions they've taken are turning more and more people away from it. Revolutions proves the selling out paradigm. It's not as popular as they hoped and it's base is console players, not specifically civ fans.
Like many others Toady has found a way to make money by giving his stuff away, like Order of the Stick, User Friendly, PvP, the artists of the FuMP, etc. People who are making a living doing what they love and not crippling people with ownership systems that only punish the users. Why abandon quality? More money means more costs, programmers, artists, investors... It's a big planet and not everyone has the same tastes. Trying to match everyone's tastes winds up with something beyond bland and usually beyond bad. I've just seen pictures for the new Trek bridge and it made me want to cry, it looks like a midtown office. DF is popular because of what it is, not because of what it is not.
Lastly, as an artist I can see where Toady is at. DF is his baby, the game HE wants and he has been generous enough to share it with us. I for one and glad and pleased to share my ideas for smoothing it out, but I draw the line there. If I don't like the direction it's going I will go somewhere else. If the ArmyArc doesn't appeal I might like the next one, if it drags the game to a place i don't enjoy, I won't. But maybe, just maybe, I'll find something new I like.
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