Samurai changes are unacceptable in the current iteration

[Quor]

I still call bullshit on the idea that Kaiten was restricting their design space so much that they had to remove it. How hard is it to change Kaiten to only affect Iaijutsu and Ogi Namikiri if they didn't want it to affect future weaponskills?

And even if they did need to remove Kaiten to make room for some new ability, why wouldn't they remove Kaiten and introduce the new ability simultaneously? None of it makes sense.

If you don't understand the rationale for an action, you can usually assume the intent based on the result. If that holds true in this case, then samurai didn't get dumbed-down as fallout of removing Kaiten and flattening potency, rather Kaiten was removed and potency flattened specifically to achieve that result.

Agreed. The change was lazy. Re-balancing could have addressed the issue just fine, either cutting the potency boost or through some other means that preserved the gameplay flow. Outright removing it is the single most lazy thing they could have done.