This expansionist (egalitarian?) mentality filters in to a number of aspects of the new game design:
- More exotic PC choices (as mentioned in another thread---catering to common player's desire to build a "special snowflake")
- Faster level progression
- Simplified dice-mechanics (== less taxing mental math and memorization)
- removal of routine player effort that might slow down play (i.e. resource management)
- Less PC death (i.e. no one has to fully lose)
DP talks about this as a necessary
evolution of the game. While the success of 5th edition makes the case for its
necessity (from the view-point of profitability), I think evolution is too biased a claim. The game has changed course.
I take exception to your line of reason, because your premise jumps between too many subjective points to get to a shakier conclusion. For instance, of those 5 items you've outlined as characteristic of "new game design", I really only see one of them (#3) as being objectively factual. To refute the specifics of the others:
1. "Special snowflake" is a pejorative. Players just want a character to feel like something special, instead of using old-school design mentality that low-level characters are all just "Steve the Swordsman". So WotC added a few new races and classes to the game. They didn't do it because players 5e were all thin-skinned losers who get butthurt if their character can't fly at level 2, but rather because a game that takes place in a wondrous, magical land with thousands of different sentient species - a game which prides its self on the idea that "you can do anything in D&D" - feels that the folk who want to dabble in those things should be able to have the mechanics to use them. I'd argue this counts as "evolution"; taking the game to the next stage in its goal of "do anything you can imagine".
2. Level progression goes as fast as the DM dictates. There's nothing stopping an OSR GM from dropping 50,000gp in loot on a bunch of 1st level characters in a gold=XP game, just as there's nothing stopping a 5e DM from running zero combat encounters in a session. Even a novice DM can advance the players at any pace they choose. The only mechanic that states otherwise - CR-rationing encounters in a day to balance the Rest mechanics - is just a soft guideline about designing your own encounters, not a fundamental axiom of the game.
3. I agree, but again, I believe it to be indicative that the game has been evolving. Simplification of crunch is always the next step in evolution - if it weren't, we'd all be using DOS and you'd be reading this on Usenet.
4. Resource management is subjective to the table. Party composition dictates the magical tools and survivalist skills at their disposal. Darkvision kinda sucks more than people give it credit for - you see everything faintly in grey-scale at a close range... not ideal compared to torches and lanterns. Light can only be used by someone who can cast it, which I'd argue that their not needing torches is a fair trade-off for using up a Cantrip spell slot. Hardass DMs can enforce whatever encumbrance, eating/drinking, armor donning/doffing, sleeping, ammunition, light, etc. rules they want - there's nothing inherent to 5e that you can't find in other editions which automatically minimizes player resource management. You could say there are many
options to minimize the logistics that many 5e players don't enjoy, but again, that's just the game advancing to a design state where it can be used by people who don't want to track that stuff. It can all be included or excluded just as easily as any other version; the DM just needs to have an ounce of competency.
5. Less PC death? Maybe, but that's a far cry from no PC death, or PC invincibility. Any 5e DM will tell you that player death is still very common. Why is turnover so much fun to you people anyway? Do you guys actually enjoy taking a half hour to fill a character sheet only to tear it up ten minutes later? That seems like the opposite of fun, and it sounds like Wizards agreed, so they gave a few last-ditch chances for PCs to survive a battle if they can (via the addition of Death Saves, which as a tangential argument I'd say are the most intense, fun die rolls a player gets to make). It was an adaptive (read "evolution") move by Wizards to "patch" the heavy-handed, often totally unfair, character death issues in earlier editions.
I can see the crux of your argument pretty clearly: old school is about challenging the players, and new school is about appeasing the most players. But I believe you are wrong when you say that the evolution of the game serves only to increase the players base and thus profits. Evolution in the game is made to correct imbalances, add new opportunity, and streamline the clunky bits... polishing up the game. That's most of what 5e is: polished D&D, made so by evolution throughout its iterations, discarding the weaknesses and adding new features that are required (you know, like how life evolves).
The game hasn't changed course: you can do all the exact same things with your character in 5e as you can in any OSR system... you just use an expanded yet more streamlined set of rules to resolve the outcomes. That's the difference.