the reason why this happened is because the people who built blizzard are gone. they understood the nature of gaming, of fans. those guys created a ton of faith with their style of "soon" because you knew they weren't going to shill to anyone. they made the games they wanted and they wouldn't release it unless they knew it was up to their own extremely high standards.
those guys are all gone. either retired or moved to other companies. in their place they left people who were talented, but have effectively stolen the faith we had from the the people who built blizzard with their blood sweat and tears. i'm not trying to be dramatic, but that's what's going on. it's old money vs new money. old money worked from nothing to have something. new money just waited for someone to die.
again, i'm not saying they aren't talented, but they have done NOTHING to earn the respect that they think they are owed. this is what happens with every self-entitled, rich, immature developer who looks at the audience as dollar signs. if you go to work and your boss decides to not pay you, you throw a fit and tell him off, threaten to walk out, tell him how much he needs you, not the other way around.
that's what this is. blizzard telling all the fans that they don't care about what we want. we as fans are important only so far as we continue to pay them.