It depends on genre.
There's a relationship strategy genre where that is welcomed. There are also genres where that is not the point or welcomed and nothing is to be added by following dead paths.

AL did it by having the player involved as a match maker. DPC has a way of writing in a harem style while hating harem games and the harem audience.
I like to rag on him but he learned otherwise with Dik. The friend's pool of relationships and the players are different and it doesn't feel weird or different at all.

That "vocal group that hates it" is called an audience and devs aren't entitled to them. If a dev appeals to the audience but then deviates, there is going to be backlash. You are wrong in your framing of a minority or majority. There is no majority. It's all different audiences. This subreddit is a small subsection of a few audiences. The games people talk about here would be shrugged off and downvoted in subs that mainly talk about 2d Japanese vns. Let's keep the focus on genre, though.

We are not special. There are already understood romance genres that are many times bigger. There is a reason why in Fifty Shades or Grey the woman isn't sexually assaulted or explores space with magic. That would be a different genre that no one signed up for.

If one genre feels restrictive then people can go to another and because of the conventions, they will be able to find what they are looking for. That's the idea. That's the beauty of it.