To spend a lot of money on a game, you have to make a game people will want to play. Not the 0.2% of people who play DnD. The 2 billion people who play video games. What about this is hard to understand?
More than anything? The direct correlation between the features announced and this alleged explosion in popularity for the game.
In order to get the sales (to recoup outlay and make a profit) Larian have to appeal to the largest number of people and in order to do this everything has to be made as simple as possible (dumbed-down).