The current addon crackdown misses the point: Blizzard is punishing the tools instead of fixing the design flaws that made them necessary
Instead of addressing the problem first, you’re taking away the medicine that treats the symptoms.
Don’t remove Plater, add a coloring system to the game and show buffs on mobs that can be dispelled. put more information in the castbar.
Don’t remove OmniCD, add a way in-game to track party member’s cooldowns, or make the classes more flexible.
If a mob requires an addon to be playable, either redesign the mechanic or build the clarity directly into the game.
You experiment on us too much. It often feels like feedback from active players is getting drowned out by theories from those no longer in the trenches. Just about all of my friends and extended network of people kind of enjoy addons I think, even my casual friends enjoy making their UI. It’s a frequent, enjoyed topic. In general I only hear complaints about addons from a streamer starting with an “A” and people on the forums. That said, I know that is not how everyone feels and I agree that the game shouldn’t need it.
So stop dancing around it and just bake in the functionality and … do it well.
Regarding that. I hear the rotation assist is OK for what it is meant to do, but the cooldown tracker is a hot mess and seemingly an indicator of huge problems ahead. Blizzard, you have a discord of world first raiders available but you couldn’t even borrow a decent built-in weakaura package for each spec from say Luxthos?
Some of those weakauras are really pretty and having a simplified version of them would have been a real crowd pleaser. This was a real opportunity for you to shine. Apologies, but you seem too arrogant to correct course and instead we have a missed opportunity in the cooldown manager and on course for much deeper issues.
If you want to make this a W instead of an L, here’s what you do.
Hire the WAGO team as consultants and they can help you identify what players actually need in their UI. I bet you could get a few of the major addon/WA authors to come help with a reasonable consulting fee. They can also help you identify ways to make the in-game graphics show “this player is poisoned” – far superior than a box with an icon.
This is meant to be constructive: you seem like you’re a boat adrift and it’s time for some humility to bring you back to land. I’m glad you figured out this is a problem but this is not the way to fix it.