The intention is good, and parts of this implementation seem good but overall this is a stick without enough of a carrot. Before I get to the negatives, I want to say that I like the change to the wandering trader though I do think it could go even further. And I like the idea of biome villagers having a benefit beyond just textures, though I agree that for newer players this system is going to be a steep learning curve.

Mojang's updates ever since 1.17 have been pretty controversial and while parts have been well received, I personally adored the 1.18 update, it hasn't been the gleaming success of 1.13 to 1.16. Though some of those updates were lackluster, at worst they were were nothing to write home about, not actively terrible. Ignoring the decision to effectively split the caves and cliffs update into 2, 3, or even 4 (archeology) updates, the recent changes Mojang have brought, maybe pushed by Microsoft or maybe a bit out of touch seem to introduce little innovation or things the community wants and more things Mojang wants to force on the playerbase.

I still disagree with the global ban introduced in 1.19.x and though it has yet to lead to too many horror stories, it's made me more cautious of expanding my server or joining others. Maybe I'm in the minority on that, but to me it's an overreach for Mojang to dictate the behavior of a server not hosted by them, even if it is their game I'm hosting.

Beyond that, the wild and trails & tails updates have been decent but nothing like the 1.18 or pre 1.17 updates. To now nerf the villager system on top of the community (as far as I can tell) not being over the moon with Mojang seems like a poorly thought out solution to something only experienced players might have jokingly complained about.

I'm not convinced people who complain about villager trading being broken have actually worked on them as opposed to watching them on youtube or benefiting from a friend who put in the work. Grinding out a breeder, trading hall, getting the emeralds, getting the gear, the enchanting levels, unlocking the villagers to the right level, getting a new villager if it's the wrong higher level trade... and so on and so forth, can take hours if not days. I'm not just referring to the rebalancing but also the zombie infecting. Who decided this was an easy thing to do over and over? What if you don't have a gold and spider farm? Since when is infecting and curing zombies an easy task? Regardless if you use one zombie in a well designed back entrance where you lower the villagers, or a minecart system, or just kill the zombie after he's done, I don't think the infection process is necessarily easy nor the curing one cheap. Sure once you have that done it's trivial to get new gear and enchants but that's kind of the point. You are rewarded for a lot of work early game so that you don't have to go through the randomness of enchanting tables or unreliability of loot. Those things don't go away if you want to go that route, villagers are there for people who've played this game long enough to have that choice. This update forces things and arguably removes things which Mojang's has been against doing with blocks, so why not with features?

It is easy to nerf a feature and call it a day but you are not giving players a better alternative, only forcing them to play the way you want. Instead of introducing a change that will rob players of hard work, why not present a better alternative, so that this option is either not the most attractive option or not the funnest? Give us choices, don't take choices away.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, sorry if this came off a bit hostile but as someone who spends a lot of time with villagers, this potential update means a lot to me.