It's either make it more appealing for purists or make it more appealing for D:OS groupies. I think it's just that Larian didn't expect a backlash from D&D community.
They would have to be really shortsighted if they didn't see this coming. They changed a lot of things to lean closer to D:OS rules instead of the 5e rules they had been advertising, and then are surprised that the D&D fans aren't happy about how little this feels like a D&D game? They had to either see this coming and simply figured the DOS fans would outnumber the D&D fans for some reason, or they just didn't care.
