I'll be the devil's advocate here for a bit:
Population - yes, that classifies as streamlining.
Religions & Cultures - I can live with that. In the game's timespan it doesn't make sense to have big shifts in religion and culture of whole regions. Also, this is a map of the British isles only. Do you see it as more realistic to shift the culture of one shitty village without causing any change to the neighbouring villages? It's implausible, because of the size and scale of the campaign map. Think of it this way - if you win the grand campaign, that's when cultural and religious changes actually begin.
Provincial Edicts - these were already stupid to have in Rome 2. In fact managing taxes, edicts or anything else on the level of 3-4 settlements instead of on the level of a single settlement was already dumbing down. It would be cool if you were able to set up some policy at a settlement level, but I don't know how much this would be in tune with the level of complexity of governments of petty kingdoms.
Army traditions - I could see these being replaced with some sort of "warband fame"-themed tree of upgrades but, meh... Not really that important to me. I play EB for MTW2 and you know, the lack of stack upgrade tree doesn't matter one bit. If the general has his upgrade tree it's just a matter of balance whether or not the stack will have its own upgrade tree.
No agents - with the exception of spies, agents were already redundant. In Rome 2 spies became what spies + assassins were in Rome. I would miss spies, but I can live without them. BTW, EB2 institutes a limit on the number of agents you can have of any one type. Surprise surprise, this was plagiarized and adapted in RTW2. So agent flood doesn't have to be a problem at all.
No imperium - come on, the population of dung-littered hamlets are supposed to revolt against your warriors and lord because he is somehow not imposing enough in their opinion? This isn't antiquity and isn't RTW any more, dudes :D
You are able to exploit the game and take minor settlements from the AI quickly - OMG, TW games can be exploited, #shocked, #refundimmediately Meanwhile, roleplaying EB2 brings me huge enjoyment.
Global recruitment pool instead of per-province - This would have made sense to have with some factions but hardly with others (the vikings). I'll have to look into it, if it's possible to recruit units of other factions if you control any of their settlements.
No navies - Pardon my lack of education on the subject, but who had any navy to speak of in that region, in that period? Any known cases of naval battles around the 9th century British isles?
No ambush stance - Legitimately that's silly, I'd expect to be able to ambush.
It will be the same shitty game with a little bit of different textures.They will just add some pointless and idiotic campaign map mechanic and few new types of unrest. We will still get 5 kind units that are reskinned twenty times each and retarded AI that could stay relevant only because it have a huge cheat sheet.
