One thing I find interesting about NH is that, as the OP said, it's changed so very drastically from the original 'intent' of Animal Crossing that, even though the two games share some of the same base elements, it almost doesn't feel like an 'Animal Crossing' game anymore in a way. The original Animal Crossing design philosophy was very much based on the concept of there being things that are just outside your control. As the series has progressed, more and more control was steadily given to the player. IMO, and I'm clearly biased, but I think New Leaf hit the best 'compromise' between the original's "take things as they come" style of gameplay and the ability to customize, to an extent. You didn't have to be a little gnome in a viking hat (sorry ACGC); you could actually make a character that looked like you/an OC/whatever and feel like you could properly roleplay. You could put certain things outside with PWP. You could customize your furniture with Cyrus. But you couldn't change EVERYTHING. You're still stuck with a specific town layout. Villagers had the potential to move out, or move in randomly in spots that you had no control over; things that are generally considered a hassle to those who must absolutely handcraft the 'perfect town'.
When people talk about New Horizons, one thing I hear sometimes is people saying (and I think OP said it too) that the game was focused on a more casual group of players. Again, I find this interesting, because IMO the target group that Nintendo seemed to laser focus on when choosing the design philosophy for this game was NOT the casuals, but instead the hardcore design playerbase. The people who refused to give their villagers any items at all, lest their OG houses be "ruined". The people who ranted and raved about villagers moving in and ruining their perfect paths and flowers. The people who TT'd or used exploits to make sure villagers either moved out or didn't move out. The people who had a taste of control and said, that's not good enough: I want my town to be a perfect picture post card to show off and share with the world. This was made even easier with dream addresses. The people more in line with the OG playstyle probably just quietly played their games, but the ones who cared about painstakingly crafting the perfect town were vocal about the things that made it hard, and also posted pictures and dream addresses... and they were the ones who were heard. Hence why NH is, as I've said in another thread, an architectural design game with some life-sim aspects. The casual appeal comes in with the drip-feed of updates - players who don't care that much and would have put the game down not too long after buying it, never to play again, are probably more likely to pop back in again if they notice that new 'stuff' has happened.
So, here's where we are now. A lot of people who loved the customization and design aspects of New Leaf and wanted more control are the ones who probably love New Horizons, warts and all, because it gave them more of the aspects of the game that they loved. Villager dialogue being toned down made sense, as these players were already used to their villagers being 'picture postcard setpieces' to be admired and not necessarily talked to, at the risk of 'messing up' their houses. A lot of people who were expecting more of an easygoing life-sim with some design elements were blindsided by the gameplay being totally changed to appeal to the former players, with aspects of the life-sim design that were considered cornerstones of the franchise either gone completely or minimized. For a long time, expecting that a new sequel in the series would have all the old features plus new features was just something that long-time players had come to expect... so now, on a system like the Switch, to see so many features cut to make room for things that older players had never really asked for (crafting, in particular), absolutely ruffled feathers. And there's only so much one can hear that maybe such-and-such feature will return in an update before one starts to feel a little jaded... why is it okay to expect that updates with basic AC game features are necessary when older games on less complex systems were able to somehow sell entire games on release date?
At the end of the day, though, I would like to ask the OP this: Why is it so annoying to hear other people complain? I am genuinely confused by this. If I happened to love NH, I wouldn't care that other people didn't like it, and I wouldn't feel compelled to try and convince them to look at it differently or to stop complaining about it. I'd just play the game and participate in the conversations that were germane to my interests. I don't care if people don't like NL. I mean, my favorite Final Fantasy game is FF8, and I've heard it all: The game isn't as good as 6 or 7. People hate Triple Triad and the Junction system. People hate the story and characters. But I don't care if people love it or hate it; that will never affect my own love of the game.
At any rate, OP, you should be happy with NH if you like it, and try not to let the dissenting opinions of others get you down. It's easy to ignore certain complaint topics, I would think. For us Leafers/Poppers/whatevers, we're not trying to ruin anybody's fun, and honestly, I feel pretty confident saying that we aren't happy to have things to complain about. The realization that what made Animal Crossing special to us is in the past now can be genuinely frustrating, and sometimes it really helps to not only vent, but to also find a little company in misery. We do have our old games at least, but we may not have a future in the franchise... and that hurts a bit.
I never really took it as a tagline/slogan either, but more of a... this is the population sign and you are now a member of the population, as well as anyone else who moves in, so the population is... growing. I mean, the box also says Welcome to Animal Crossing but we don't call it that, either. I just always took 'population growing' as part of the welcome message tone on the box. You know, "Welcome to Animal Crossing! Population: growing!"
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But from my point of view the complaints are legit.
