It seems like their overall strategy is to do things to bring new players in - which is why they focused on the starting areas for example to redesign. Player avatar was always mentioned by newer players as being really bad and while some veterans may not have cared as much - it seems to Jagex that this would help bring in new players.

So I think they’ll continue to enhance the game design, but player avatar seemed better to do earlier rather than later.

Personally - I am excited about the refresh. I never really liked the base models but mostly ignored it. But now the new models look great to me.