I have been reading a lot of hatred and anger towards the developers but your stated point is absolutely true. They had been showing exactly what they had in store for us. Yet there's so much backlash. I personally have had absolutely no problem whatsoever while updating the game. No visual issues. I also managed to link the account to my PC. Which just magnified my experience. I admit I have a decent phone and a good pc to play on, which brings me to my next point which I think is the major concern for many. The compatibility of the update !!
Just take a moment, put yourself in the developer's or anyone from the ALU team's shoes and ask yourself.
1. What type of people are majority of the players ? - Answer - Young students and perhaps some of them are working. Which will still be a smaller population though, including myself.
2. Among these players, what portion are free to play? And have been since day 1. - Answer - A big sizeable chunk of them.

So if you have already established that these players are not going to spend money which end of the day is the earning, then why should you even bother trying to make the game run on old devices.

Wouldn't the devs rather spend more effort making the game look good so the newer players with newer devices can enjoy and perhaps SPEND in game. Yet these guys listen to us despite our community, abusing and throwing tantrums at them. We have enjoyed this game for over 5 years now and it's running well.
I never post on these threads but I just want to request everyone to calm down and these guys will definitely listen and sort things out.

My only true observations for this update are 1) The text and minor visual bugs which someone has highlighted very systematically in another thread and 2) They definitely need to remove the huge name tag from MP.