Yeah, I admit I don't really touch on the very likely possibility that underdeveloped new features are more profitable than significant structural updates. It's certainly possible, and would be very much in style for Microsoft. That being said, it seems like Mojang has been given pretty far reign over the game's development, and the Devs mostly seem genuinely interested in improving the game.
What I question on their part is the assumption that they can't both add flashy new features and also improve the game in more fundamental ways- I would argue that plenty of the new Nether additions, for example, both significantly improve and change the experience of the dimension, while also adding straightforward new content that can be easily marketed to new players. The Sniffer, for example. could have been better developed, with more interesting mechanics, and would have been just as much an easy sell. They're treating it as if they can only improve the game meaningfully, or add stuff that's more marketable, when they almost certainly have the time and resources to do both. Or that larger updates will always result in delays and debacles. IMHO, they could have just as easily added all the Trails & Tales features as additional stuff for a larger update, and had the best of both worlds.
It's also totally possible they're working on bigger stuff under wraps, rendering all of this moot, but since we can't read the Devs minds, I probably should be cautions making assumptions as to their intent.
...But yeah, the problems of monetization are another issue entirely, and the reason I will never play bedrock. It's probably naive, but I do have to wonder if their marketing really makes a significant difference at this point for one of the most lucrative games in history. It worries me deeply that there isn't much monetary incentive to keep java edition around.
