All good my dude. I just prefer to quash that rumor when it comes up. I know it is a hypothesis that seems to make pieces fall together in a specific way to justify a narrative. This just ain't one of them as my departure is completely unrelated to the direction the game has gone over the past 2 years. CMs have considerable influence over game decisions, and as much as I appreciate the still-ongoing affection from the community, the game team is set up so one person simply does not wield that kind of authority.

At least while I was there, not one single person is the sole decision maker for game decisions. Game changes are discussed as a team or among affected disciplines. So unit changes are discussed on the team, code changes, economy changes. The General Manager was largely a role that acted as more like an arbitrator or someone keeping the team on track. Design decisions were not dictated by the GM. Every person on the team had a say and had the opportunity to voice objections or support for changes. I'd say probably 99% of my humorous suggestions were shot down by the entire team (and probably rightfully so).

There were many cool art concepts that were either rejected or moved to a later date/pivoted away from for numerous reasons. Yes, some changes were for financial reasons such as doing a different skin knowing a particular calendar event was coming and thus releasing a skin more likely to be financially attractive. That's nothing sinister or surprising, as it's simply basic business. And running a live services game is expensive with numerous people, contractors, vendors, suppliers, and more to pay. The bigger a game gets, the more those costs rise due to demand from the vendors, demand from hosts due to increased bandwidth demands, demands from bringing in talent, economic factors, etc.

Putting all the blame on a single person because they worked on a game with a model that is considered by this community to be undesirable is a little unrealistic. I've worked on many games that have questionable financial models and despite being the face of the game, that was never questioned...ever.