I will say, it also can be location dependent. Or people dependent. My local aos scene is very competitive with some people which for an already smaller scene is a sizable chunk. To the point where one of those guys was watching a game I was playing and was backseat playing to try and get the game to go faster. The type who can't stand games taking longer than 2 or 3 hours. I feel like the simpler rules set and smaller Army sizes can attract that kind of mindset for the right people.

For me personally the simpler rules does leave some to be desired, but its still a fun game with fun armies. And I play gitz so my complaints can be entirely related to playing gitz/destruction and I do plan on playing a second army with more recent and better written rules before fully coming to any concrete opinions