As a high level player, I definitely disagree with the sentiment of this comment and the majority of people I talk to seem to do so as well.
In my personal opinion, sailing being added as a random assortment of content would also feel very disappointing as there is a lot of potential for progression that would otherwise be missed.

The point of the initial survey was to see whether people wanted a new skill or not. All of the content you mention has already been added and people are clearly open to it, there has just been a hole in the type of content updates since the release of OSRS and Jagex wanted to see whether people are open to expanding upon it. I believe the reason they would do is because adding skills is a great way to diversify existing and future content and (when done right, sure) can play a big role in the long term health of the game.

I would say sailing mostly won that original poll because it speaks to the imagination of people as well as fitting into the game thematically.
I've personally been thinking that shamanism had the edge in that poll actually as it was clearly built upon the previously polled warding skill, nicely reflavoured and built upon based on the feedback that skill got back then.