Liked your thoughts on the subject, but got to say, i do not agree with you on what i got to understand as your overall look on these decisions "made to please the audience".
I do agree in the idea of publishers and designers to made they own calls regarding what a game is supposed to give the audience. they are the ones who must always set the main ideas and try to deliver a product wich is complete in design terms, the idea beign developed and the "appealing" feature of the game.
It is, whoever, naive to think that during the whole production, design, and merchandizing stages of the game develpment gaming industries do not consider how much they will "sell" or how they can make theyr product more appealing to a larger audience. Your article is a bit offensive (in a harmless way) to those players (customers) who happen to speak their thoughts on a game hoping for some stuff on it to be addressed. I myself am a Mass Effect hardcore fan, and im not happy about the last release, i understand that develpers need to be free on the creativity side of the game, but you cannot expect to deliver a regular product and get a superb response from an audience wich is everyday more informed and comes to expect more and better stuff from a game.
On the particular case you mentioned about the flashlight... I think its a step on a different direction, given they want to change the game into a more "action" based experience instead of a more enviromental and frieghtening gameplay experience. I would have recommended using a light system as the one implemented on STALKER:SoC in wich you had a flaslight on the top of yer head, a little flashlight that didnt light up much and usually gave yer location away to enemies, but gave the necesary light for the player to get surrounding awareness but didnt messed with what it was one of the most enviromental games i ever played on my gaming story.
Anyway, congratulations on starting an interesting discussion topic.
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