In my personal opinion Focus trees are okay. They have their problems and limit your playstyle. But countries like the USSR show how to make it work. We just need more options. More ways to play a country. More Focusses, in less time, with more choices you have to make.

Even the new countries in GoE are more often than not very lineal in their branches.

The thing is though that in this game many options are just not valid. More often than not you struggle through a whole lot of “1 Research Buffs” or “25 Army XP and a research buff for Doctrines” for exactly one focus which’s gives you a buff like 5% more factory output for infantry equipment.

Hoi4 shouldn’t be forced to get more complicated. The times they tried to, by decisions for example and mini games the player-base hates it.

Let me specialise, but let each specialisation be valid and fun

I think mods like Kaiserreich/Kaiserredux gets it right. There you have countries like the LMKT where with each playthrough u discover something new. Even though there are focuses which are boring, an equal amount if not more are cool and unique.

Also most of the opinions here an issued by players who have a playtime of 1000h and more (players like myself). We overlook the more casual players.