What this all boils down to is that Magic players view Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh as simpler games to get people into CCG's while Wizards sees those games as competitors to Magic.  Anything that the "simpler" games do that seem to get people to buy packs, Wizards will mimic if they think it will increase the number of packs they can sell (foils and mythic rares come to mind).

Everyone is upset because they feel like Wzards is killing Magic, but Wizards is doing exactly what they have always done: whatever it takes to sell more packs.  If Wizards believed that they could make more money tomorrow by creating "Magic 2.0" and instantly banning all existing Magic cards, they would do it.  Yes, some of the rules changes are questionable, but don't forget that Wizards believes that there are more casual players than tournament players.  There are more players that don't check the Internets for Magic-related news than there are people on TMD/SCG/etc.

Wizards wants to sell more packs, thus they are changing rules to make it more appealing to more people.  This is their business strategy.  As business strategies go, its been the most successful one.  Look at Jihad/Vampire.  They kept rotating out entire sets of cards there were no longer legal in the game.  Look at Decipher SW:CCG.  They fell into the classic power creep trap and killed themselves.  I for one am not a fan of the new combat damage rules, but I will adapt.  At a minimum, I see this as a challenge: Is there some new best deck that can take advantage of the changes?