Which makes it near impossible for those of us working on new material to be sure we're heading in the right direction with it.

Speaking for myself, I'm a little annoyed that the wider community is only just hearing about this now and that we haven't been given the opportunity to express our preferences about the new game and in particular it's setting.
After all, without us, there is no game, just a collection of printed words that don't sell.
I HATE marketing (studied it long enough, worked in it far too long), but I know that if you're not finding out what your target market wants, you're not going to have a very saleable product.