Yeah but Ben and Mena Trott who started and continue to run 6A (she's president, iirc and Ben works in development I think) also have zero clue about their MT user base - they NEVER have. They hired Barak, they like Barak, he is just like them, absolutely clueless. If you read Mena's personal blog or maybe it was in Mena's corner at 6A (or both, I remember something about their trip to Japan to open MT something there), there's entries by her talking about hiring Barak, this was back around 2004 or 2005 iirc, around when they moved MT to pay licenses and I was more involved there with beta testing for v3.* so I followed her posts for a while.

6A has not changed, this is how they've been all along, it's just that now they're meddling in LJ instead of letting the LJ staff who DO understand the culture be in charge. They bought a good investment but they're quickly trashing it by sticking their fingers in it.