It’s not how the community feels though most of it has pushed that it shouldn’t have been another gnome.
Most of the community doesn’t actually feel this way. Its just that you have lobbying groups such as the Sethrak community who have been actively pushing for races different races who saw mechagnomes as an obstacle to getting what they want. So these people were continuously pushing the narrative that mechagnomes were a mistake. I think the real mistake was getting vulpera instead of gilgoblins. As gilgoblins would have fit nicely into the existing patter of allied races.