There was not anything lucklustre in the game before. People were playing a free tribe regularly and winning with it most of the times too. For Christ sake, you got 10 mil + downloads. The game was a legend. The way you took it from people is just outrageous.
"I'm tired of Battleship spam and wish water was more fun" was like, #1 request for a long time.
I can tell you, there was a lot of lackluster things judging by fan response, and it's our job to fix it. We don't want water to be dominated by a single unit, and neither did a lot of people.