Hmmm,
To be a small fish in a big (COD'ish) pond
- or -
To be the big fish in a smaller (Realism) pond.
This really.
Frankly, I don't think TWI making RO2 have a separate action mode was that great an idea. I think it's damn good of them to make the effort to try appeal to different kinds of players, but I don't believe it being worthwhile. If TWI did RO2 as classic mode to begin with, we'd probably have new tanks and transports by now, no? The "easy mode" is like a throwaway feature.
RO2 is in a niche of its own, and it's best to keep it that way. That's why it was successful in the first place, because it filled one attractive niche. And it's a niche that's not for everyone. And that's okay. It's the same reason why I don't play The Sims.
However, it's smart to make the game accessible. RO1 was clunky and tough to get into (though it was wholly rewarding) and some key things just weren't explained very well to new players. RO1's formula as a game is totally fine, it's just the difficulty of understanding it at first and some of the game's limitations/old tech that really needed to be improved.
But if the spoon-feeding FPS games out there didn't exist in the first place to become the popular thing, I think TWI would be better off when it came to appealing to the playerbase as they wouldn't have had to try attracting them. The initial release could have went down better in that regard, too.
But yes, if it came down to a vote, I'd vote that TWI should become the big fish in a new pond. Not a little fish in the other pond. I wanna see more games with the complexity and the rewarding experience of RO and KF, I'd like developers elsewhere someday say "hey, these guys called Tripwire are really raking it in by filling niches instead of appealing to the lowest common denominator, let's try it out ourselves."
It'd be like the 90s again, but with new technology.