Quite the opposite to that actually... the Viper changes were because of internal feedback within the developers. When Yoshi-P announced the Viper changes via Lodestone, the forums went out of their way to beg Yoshi-P not to change the class and praise its design and its gameplay, stating how much fun they are having.
The class was still changed and Yoshi-P admitted to seeing the feedback and praise for their work, but he chose to ignore it.