I really, really disagree with your thoughts, also as someone coming from the alpha/base launch, especially with it going towards modern game design. There isn't anything like SOT out there, for better or worse. The idea about it becoming grindy, especially, makes absolutely no sense.
People forget this, but commendations didn't really exist until Hungering Deep. As a fun exercise, go back and look at your Hungering Deep commendation page. It's really more of a quest page, and there is none of this artificial time lengtheners like "kill a skeleton with a cursed ball x times" or "complete each tall tale 5 times" or "kill the ghost meg x times."
Yes, prior to post launch content releases, the game was still grindy. It was still based around progressing to pirate legend, which took a very long time to do before you were able to purchase levels. But at that time, there was still a hope from many in the community that Rare would be able to implement some of the stuff they discussed in the alpha like daily/weekly events that significantly changed the world. Special quests, new enemy types, etc.
It's now a year in, and they cannot even add the banjo due to technical limitations with the RAM, and they had to completely redo the physics system sometime around time that they added the AI skeleton ships. If you want me to dig up the build patch notes, I will do that.
Don't get me wrong, I love this game. I recognize that the game is about the journey not the destination. But I still think that the post launch development is built too much around grinding. When you play with good players, so much of the game becomes about exploiting broken mechanics to grind as quickly and efficiently as possible, that it takes away from the social elements of the game that made the game special in the first place.
Perhaps this is more reflective of the Xbox Live community more generally, but the types of players that I encounter who have the most stuff are the sad souls who spend 6-8 hours a day sucking vape pens, drinking rockstar, and trying to complete commendations as quickly as possible. Perhaps they are having some fun along the way, but many of these people feel like people who would otherwise be spending hours at a casino. And my biggest problem with this, is Rare rewards players who do this. Look no further than the special randomized cosmetic that you receive for completing each Tall Tale 5 times.
Look, there's always going to be players who want to devote hours to the games they love. But quite honestly the elements of SoT that I love the most are the social elements, and working with and fighting against other crews. As far as social elements to the sandbox go, basically only the speaking trumpet was added. To make matters worse, one of the most enjoyable elements of SoT around launch was the great battles that occurred at Skull Forts. Those are basically dead now.
I love SoT, I just hate grindy game design. We have gotten way too accustomed to it as players, and it's not something that is inherently necessary in multiplayer games. If a game is fun, people will play it. Perhaps a subset of players will develop a meta around some late game goal. But too much of this game is built around the meta of hunting commendations, and most if not all commendations are still fetch quests in one form or another.
