To the bolded - my guess is that things will trend in the exact opposite direction. The equal and opposing solution to no reservations is that everyone has a reservation for everything. And given trends - increased attendance, increased desire from Disney to be able to plan things out in terms of workforce / resources, increased desire from guests to lock in their rides and have low waits, increased use of technology for pre-orders - I think that is the more efficient if ever-so-slightly slightly dystopian future we are trending towards. In 30 years I think "AAR" might stand for "Advance Attraction Reservation" and you might just make them for most things.
That is a truly dystopian vacation. I'm one of those that disliked the 60 day planning. At least in the context of planning everything. For those that counter with "what about dining", how many ADR do you make for a trip? We're going for 6 nights and have just 2 dining reservations, plus 1 activity. That's 3 reservations across 6 days. Reserving 3 rides ahead of time per day would be 18 additional reservations. Making 21 instead of 3 defined tasks. To us, that starts to feel less like a vacation and more like executing a spreadsheet of tasks. If we had 6 ADR (or 12) and 18 rides, 24 to 30 hard defined tasks that we had to hit at specific times at specific parks all defined 2 months in advance it would drive us nuts. What if the weather changes, what if we want to hit the water park one day (with the right weather), what if want to go back to see something again, what if we just want to explore some, what if they change maintenance and close/open rides. That level of scheduling doesn't feel like a vacation.
I'm not suggesting that Genie+ works as is, but a change back to reserving everything months in advance isn't really better for lots of people. For those that like that, it clearly is better, there's no denying that.
Something in the middle that allows some pre planning, but doesn't lock up everything months in advance would be a nicer middle ground.
Likewise, for those that say they would never go if it was only standby. Making standby better should be a goal. All of the reservation/skip the line, whatever systems will never support everyone. There will always be stand by riders. Making the parks better for them too should be a goal.
In that same planning thought, they eliminated the ride reservation but added the park pass problem. They just traded one reservation for another. They've simultaneously made it worse for both people who like to plan and those that do not. For the planners, they still have to plan a park but cannot plan activities, clearly a disappointment. For the more flexible, they're still forced (perhaps even more) into planning. We have the park hopper too, but the dual requirements to tap in at the reserved park first and limit hopping to 2:00 create significant restrictions that cannot just be ignored.
