Well, I'm interested to a degree. But not enough to actually wade through and read pages upon pages of information.
There isn't so much a lack of interest, it's the disconnect of thought between onlooker and the tightrope designers. I, for example, have no idea what thoughts go into these changes, nor do I feel eager to go read looooong discussion threads about each item. So I'm left outside the door, just looking in occasionally to see what is new, but it's hard to stay "interested" if you're not directly involved.
Something like new stats to weapons need to be bite-sized information nuggets.
When I see a weapon that has tweaked stats on the wiki page or where-ever, I'm more interested in the thoughts behind it, rather than the actual stat tweak. And I don't want it too elaborate either.
Just: "<weapon> by default has a odd role in gameplay, by replacing <stat 1> with <stat 2> and increasing the power of <effect 1>, <wepaon> now fills a more specialized role for <class> trying to <obscure tactic>. Previous iterations of <weapon> we have tried are [...], however, they were not successful or required further tweaking. The current version you see is built upon these previous tests and is hopefully the most fun and balanced edition of <weapon> yet."
What are the intended pros of a edit? What design issue is it trying to fix? What possible consequences does it have? If buffing a weapon, does it contribute to the power creep? These questions must have been answered at some point, then why can't I get those answered in a easy format right away?
Once I know what the thinking is, I can look at the iteration history, and see what was going on and where it's heading.
Because for some of these stat edits I don't know what the reasoning was, and I don't really agree with all of them, but I feel left out of the thought and iteration process. Which I of course am, but if I wanted to take a stance on anything I must really dig deep in the site to build myself a platform to argue my view on a stat change. And I'm not prepared to do that, and I'm sure the tightrope guys aren't willing to restart the argument from square 1 every time a new guy comes along and goes "HAY!".
Basically what I'm saying is as a bystander, it's hard to grasp what the thinking is behind these edits. There's a lot of "Why?" questions without accessible answers for people who don't want to enter the forum section.
I probably contradict myself a little in all of this, saying I want to have an opinion with some weight while skipping over the discussion and theorycrafting parts of the development cycle for these item changes.
But what can I say, as a interested onlooker I don't want to get my hands dirty, but I still want to judge the results and be taken seriously (ha, I wish) when ever I have a concern.
--Edit--
About the article: It's a good read, but the poll at the end is hard to take a stance on.
You clearly went through the (mostly) negatives and positives, but you don't compare it to the other syringe guns, at least not in any sense that would help me as a voter.
Again, I have to read between the lines to find answers to my questions.
What design issue does the weapon have: The trade-off for lower sustained survivability is not comparable to the supposed gain in burst self-healing.
What are the intended pros of the change: giving the medic the ability to self overheal increases survivability in situations where previously the blutsauger effects would have been nonfunctional.
Does this add to the power creep: No idea, needs thorough comparisons between all the alternative weapons simultaneously, extra hard to do since effects are involved and not just damage. Initial gut-feeling says it doesn't empower the medic to any real degree.
