I do not think you are going to find anyone arguing your subjective view of what fun is.
What we are talking about is Megaserver and bandaid fixes - their lack of testing knowing that server issues are at play for game breaking progression bugs forcing people to grind mobs to get to Cyrodil. (Which based on other opinions here is all anyone cares about aside from a few that find the PvE fun). When I talk about Matt Firor and Paul Sage, I talk about their track record with Matt not being able to make successful business decisions in who to hire/promote/fire (Although that is the incestuous nature of all companies in this industry - still, he perpetuates that - while at the same time playing a PR card to save box sales as noted with his comments that combat feedback was positive and they were moving onto other issues with the game as of last August, when even Rescorla stated that PTR closed beta were still hammering ZO about combat issues non stop 4 months after that statement) and Paul Sage being a top down developer who doesn't listen to anyone on his team and forces down design decisions, whether good for the game or not. (This is fairly well known by anyone with a pulse at this point.)
As far as Matt saying combat feedback is positive, what the hell do you expect him to say? "Hey, guys, our combat sucks!"? I find the combat fine, especially after the collision detection. It gets wonky at times but plays just fine for me. Despite what he said in a PR move, they obviously are attempting to fix the problem. They have improved it in the last couple of betas and I doubt they stop trying after release. As far as his hiring and firing decisions, who the hell knows? We don't work with any of these people. I don't know who does their job and who sits on their ass and collects a paycheck. Hell, I don't even know anyone on the team besides Matt and Paul Sage.
The end result we are seeing is another botched launch, poor testing models, poor server tech design, overall stale PvE design (You may like it, but I would venture about 90% of the people here already dislike the PvE portion of the game and are playing for Cyrodil based on the totality of the posts and opinions here in this thread and elsewhere) and what happened was also that Paul Sage took out the majority of the resources/assets with him to develop the 1-17 game.
Launch has not arrived yet, so we have no idea if its a botched launch or not. Even if it has problems, which it probably will as that is par for the course in this industry, I can hardly condemn Zenimax for having the same problem almost every other damn MMO has had since EQ released. The smoothest release I have ever seen was Rift and even that had problems and one really, really major problem which will probably be worse than anything we see out of this release. With WoW we had the infamous 'loot lag', Warhammer was an abortion of a release, Age of Conan was horrible. The list goes on. I don't like it but if I judged every single MMO on release problems, I wouldn't play a single one.
The only thing I can say about the server tech was that it held up better with lots of players on screen than any other MMO I have ever played. It certainly displayed mass battles better than GW2 does. It did it better than WAR did. There were a few nights with lag and hiccups but most nights I had little problems.
I have no idea how many here find the PvE fun. I do know that many do find it fun on Reddit and a few other sites I frequent. Some people are burned out on the quest model entirely. Some are upset because it doesn't faithfully replicate the other Elder Scrolls games. Some dislike the story. There are plenty of people who do enjoy it, however.
And as for Paul Sage moving all the assets to the 1-17 game, I'm sorry, I have only your word on that. The same guy who stated confidently that they would not drop the NDA until release week. I am sorry if I don't completely trust it. I have seen no proof of your insider knowledge. All I have seen is general predictions that are easy to make. 'They are going to have a bad launch!'. Really? So has every other MMO. Bold prediction.
Either way, as of right now, the game is a week and a half from early access, without an open beta to correct these issues that are even stopping people from entering Cyrodil in the first place. I cannot imagine what is going to happen when everyone gets there. You know this, they know this. Their fix is to add another layer (untested) that will save progression so you can play the PvE game until you get to your server. The instance transfer system untested, and I cannot even imagine what is going to happen to the Database on character transfer (copy) under load. Not to mention how broken the PvE will be in the non-server queue.
Two Options:
1) They know this. Which is why they are not doing an open beta because they won't be able to fix it anyway. The instance queue is a stop gap because they * Can't * fix it.
2) Option 1 confirmed internally.
That's just the way it is. And people can try to deflect it all they want. It isn't going to stop people from buying the game, it isn't going to stop people from playing the game. It won't stop me from trying it in the fall when it goes F2P. Preorders have been effected as a result of the poor showing in the weekend betas. Those are the facts. Nothing more, nothing less.
Enjoy your game. See you online in September.
The last two betas have been open betas in everything but name. They gave out hundreds of thousands of keys on websites. They gave everyone with previous beta access multiple friend keys. Everyone who wanted to try this game had the opportunity to do it. That 'point' is moot.
The overflow system is just another way to get around queues. GW2 had a similar overflow system and they didn't test it publicly before release either as far as I know. And as far as it going F2P, I won't bet against it doing so in the future. Hell, I won't bet against that with
anyMMO that doesn't have Warcraft somewhere in the name. It is the unfortunate nature of the beast now a days. I would bet against it going F2P by the fall but who knows?