This sounds weird. It seems there's a group that want balance and more hard and there's a group that love how it's used to be previously. So Larian upset the masses simply by listening to one group of people that love the harder game. Correct me if i'm wrong.
So instead of forcing and changing the game mechanics outright, Larian should have made an "official mod" or a separate difficulty that these group of minority that want the game to be harder. This would be the best way no? Why you have to force it to everyone?
We're all trying to beat the game, but the two groups you mentioned are wanting to beat different aspects of it. The group that loved the game as it was were the players who enjoyed the game world and were trying to beat that fictional world (which means self imposed limitations are acceptable), while the group wanting a harder game is trying to beat the game mechanics (therefore self imposed limitations aren't acceptable), and couldn't care less about the game world and the fact that this is an RPG.