Donjn,
You once again skirt the issue at hand.
If the new client was the cat's meow, EA would make a boxed set or do other advertising. But the fact still stands that the client is not good. Most people have stated that multiple times but you still say "it is subjective". So is the opinion that the 2d client is bad.
But it isn't the cat's meow... we don't have any advertising of any sort... we don't have a boxed set featuring just the KR client... they did it with the 3d client way back in the day.
So trying to blame the existence of a 2d client on no advertising is a poor excuse. The blame for no advertising is squarely on EA's shoulders and no one else.
EA IS in a bad situation... and I 100% agree a new client
could draw new subscriptions. However, they haven't produced a client to date that will do that. And it isn't the fact that they are maintaining the 2d client that is holding back a GOOD new client. They went completely off with the old 3d client with the graphics.
To take care of YOUR perceived issue of "maintaining" two sets of graphics, they could very easily create a small quick utility for going from a super hi-rez 3d picture into a 2d tile. It is a simple rotating camera projection program... second semester comp sci graphics class back in the late 90s
However, people have stated a LOT of times they want a new client to have the same simple feel and look as the current 2d client. We are satisfied with the 3/4 iso perspective and don't want a first person perspective.
We want the dev team to concentrate on what is under the hood more than what it is packaged in... you know, fix dupes, crashes, game play issues, etc.
EA knows for a fact that a new client will not attract enough new players to save UO if they lost 3/4 of the current subscriptions due to a poorly implemented client.
Thus EA has to walk a tight rope on whatever new client they try to provide because if they tick off enough people, UO is beyond history.
Two good analogies of this are renovating a house and modernizing an old car. In both cases, the outside maintains a classic look and feel. In both cases, they are upgraded: in the case of the house, new pipes, new electric, and new insulation... in the case of the car, disc brakes, new engine/trans, and upgraded interior.
There are other issues within UO that a new client won't fix and because of that, they will still lose their existing subscriptions like now as well as not attract as many as they loose because of these issues: speed hacks, game play issues in game, plain old bad logic, etc.