plagueofnations
Assuming you are correct that the "ousted" leadership left behind a handpicked successor why the hell would NCSoft leave that person in the role?
"Some new guy" being who exactly?
The guy who was the original game director and is now one of the two studio directors?
The other studio director that's been at it for like 2-3 years now?
The current game director that worked there from 2013-2016 and came back in 2021?
Guess why the game development had to be nuked? Because it turned to garbage after the release of HoT.
Guess who was game director at the time of HoT development? Same guy who is one of the studio directors now.
Guess who is game director now? The dance guy who worked there from 2013-2016
Since the content following HoT has consistently been bad it kind of makes sense to return to the people who were part of making HoT so good.