Thank you! I agree that more crossover difficulties would be nice, especially brainstorming about it is interesting.

In terms of class design I think the problem is a lot that they listen to the general playerbase. What I mean is that they ask everyone "hey what do you think is bad with this class". Now in these cases people that don't really find the class interesting from the start, will bring up opinions that just makes it into their own current favorite class, instead of actual valid feedback. Which in return leads to people that play the class again feel alienated because they keep changing the classes around other people, instead of the people that have a knowledge and love for it.

This might be the reason to why so many classes in shb feel the same, because if you listen to everyone in posts and questions, the result will often be "simple and understandable", because if you have no interest in the class from the beginning, you dont want it to be a bother to play. By listening to everyone, they change the classes in a way that alienates the people that actually... plays it. That actually enjoyed that playstyle.

A class being the least played only means that its more of a niché, it doesnt always mean that the class is badly designed. There should be a class for everyone, and the only time you should really look into classes is if a majority of the people that still play said class voices out issues with it. Not always if the people playing other classes aint. Because that would just be how classes are meant to work. You like some, you dislike some.

In making more and more classes liked by a bigger population, and looking at "played" statistics purely instead of asking the people that currently play the class, you will sometimes make people leave the game because they dont have said corner that they enjoy playing anymore. In raiding and general gameplay class design is a big deal. People that played other classes, but complained about making it easier to play, wouldnt really leave the game if they didnt change it. Just complaining is again a part of humans. Its about finding which of these complains actually matter, and in my personal opinion they failed a lot with that during shb. As most of the classes lost their individuality in playstyle, and turned into "1-2 button press" bursts.

It is of course fine to like these classes, boring if everyone liked the same thing, but it becomes a problem when it affects every single class, making classes bland, simplified and people that like more complex classes have nothing they enjoy playing anymore.