Dayyālu
Arcane
Where did this presumption come from they can do better than what was there?
The discussion is more than a decade old but the gist of it, from an outsider perspective, was that they felt that On A Rail was 1) Repetitive 2) Confusing 3) Dull 4) God Forbid, difficult. I never got the criticism and I suspect it was a form of truism that got hold of the development process and self-reinforced itself. I've never met serious criticism of Rail until Black Mesa (contra Xen) but they were hellbent on it.
The irony that they bitched and cut a somewhat grey level because it's boring and now everyone considers their magnificent-looking Xen boring because it's too long doesn't escape me.
Also, it's Typical Modder stuff.