Next expac, what if max level 120 and a free level 115 HC

They did have the shadow of... clickies.

I don't recall Columbus Nova / Jason Epstein / or whichever pre EG7 owner the company's historical revisionists select making many "promises", they said pretty much nothing and focused on using layoffs of staff and project cancellations as their main tactic in cutting costs, EQ Next was likely just one of the victims of that post SoE cost-cutting/book-balancing period.
Pre 2015 your argument about EQ having all its money siphoned off into developing other projects is totally valid so you aren't entirely wrong, just hung up on the past maybe.

I'd rather be an optimist because I have seen a lot of things moving in the right direction since EG7 became owners, I'm not entirely devoid of scepticism but I'd rather give Daybreak under EG7 an opportunity to impress with the next 1-2 expansions rather than unfairly kicking them in the nuts for water that passed beneath that bridge you have to sell a long time ago.