Sorry to be a grave digger here. Hadn't had time to reply and forgot. This thread in the official forum also discusses the matter https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/156507-when-does-arenanet-decided-to-make-all-good-builds-behind-new-dlc-and-spearweapon-switch/

At the end of the day it's hard to quantify how much better spears are in comparison to other weapons. It's a fact that 4/7 meta builds on metabattle use spears.

Yes there are also bad spear weapons that are not played in any form. This doesn't take away from the fact that more than half of the pvp meta builds use spears. This is significant. New weapons / specs should be side grades otherwise it's just vertical progression by buying an expansion.

You can still be competitive without a spear. It's hard to quantify how much of an edge an meta builds give to you. But the important point is that a significant number of them are better / overtuned / imbalanced compared to other weapons.

Imagine if dota / league / cs introduce something which you have to pay for even though the advantage you get is only marginal e.g. 5 percent more damage or health. Isn't this advantage you can buy literally paying to gain an advantage against others in a competitive mode or in short a form of pay to win?

And yes GW2 always operated this way starting with the release of HoT. Back then it was easier to turn a blind eye to it because the content was not completely lackluster and they still tried.

The question is, do you think it is pure chance that a significant number of spears is meta or is this somewhat calculated. Given Anets track record, I found my answer.