Ill give one actual post on this. Survival was only ever the definitive meta and most popular hunter spec 2 times in its ranged history. That being 4.0 bot/bwd and 4.3 dragonsoul strictly speaking PvE.
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Classic-TBC- it was garbage compared to MM (no one took it for exposed weakness be honest)
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Wotlk- it was actually OK at best, at the very start with low gear levels, but it got hard outscaled by MM very fast so its pretty bad.
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Cata- great all expansion except in firelands where BM was the best but still wasnt bad.
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MoP- all 3 specs were consistently close together enough aside from cleave, but BM was by far the most popular overall.
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WoD- same was MoP, at the start all 3 specs was close enough but BM had more numbers than MM+surv combined, until HFC where MM got its rotation “fixed” by the tier set making aimed shot instant again on top of surv getting gutted making it the least popular spec in the entire game even below gladiator warrior…
So you got 3 expansions PVEwise where it was actual or borderline troll tier garbage, 2 expansions where it was competitive but overshadowed by BM in terms of popularity, and 1 overall good expansion being cataclysm.
PvP wise its not much different. It was meta defining 6.0 WoD and thats really it.
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Classic-TBC- troll tier garbage
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Wotlk- brief period of time when TNT stunned it was pretty good, but quickly nerfed and quickly back to the garbage outside of arathi basin road fight montage videos trap rooting people 3 times in a row.
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Cata-MM was the best PvP hunter spec in cata with silencing shot and it wasnt even close.
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MoP-BM was by FAR the best hunter spec early MoP, MM was the best in late MoP unless you played HLS or scatterplay for dispel protection in MoP which very few people did.
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WoD-Survival was actually very very strong in early WoD with munitions slow being super cancerous and freezing trap having a stupidly low cd like 17 seconds or something making it the top dps spec in 2s with a rdruid, but this was nerfed and after that hunters in general were pretty bad.
So PvP wise, it was amazing 1 time in 6 expansions.
Now this is purely based on performance and not how much people vibed and enjoy its aesthetic/theme. Way more often than not, survival has been a poorly performing spec. This isnt a MSV issue this is just a straight up survival issue.
To take a spec, that was historically one of the least popular in the entire game, in a class that had 3 specs that largely played the same, and revision it into something completely different, its only a bad idea to classic purist and boomers who refuse change.