They're better received than HW Diadem was. Maybe Diadem was also a case of the team still being smaller and more responsive, given they had a shorter production schedule, or the feedback was more keenly heard because written letters and live letters were more common and YoshiP wasn't producing another major game at the time, but they also didn't wholesale trash Diadem even though players almost entirely disliked it.

Players asked for more interesting small group content for a long time, and that's why they even tried variant dungeons. Even if they weren't as venerable as deep dungeons or exploratory zones, those things weren't in their first outings, either. They did say they planned to release multiple variant dungeons this expansion, and they're usually good about keeping their promises barring pandemics or industry-wide sales milestones. I think it's reasonable to expect they'll be more given their plan and that most players enjoyed them for at least a little while, and if it didn't meet their goals, I expect they'll try things slightly differently and improve it.

I would be satisfied even if they if just came away from variants discovering some way to breathe life into all dungeons. The miniboss doing different stuff on different versions is awesome imo and keeps things fresher longer on repeats.

I'm sure the poster realizes the contradictions because we're not talking about some kind of rigid ruleset, we're talking about a team of human developers with priorities, schedules and even families. Having a plan is a good plan, but plans aren't written in stone.