Well, I never rode the ride so I can't speak from experience to say if the ride was worthy of keeping or not. I mean, there are probably tons of possibilities and scenarios that could've played out. Symbolically, the princesses now truly belong in Fantasyland but that's just a symbolic POV and may not exactly be the best argument in the support of the new M&G hall.
I know not everyone is on board with the idea of another princess M&G spot everywhere but greater access to the most popular characters is important because I don't think it's fair to only offer one way towards meeting the more popular characters. Think about the family living on a tight budget who can never afford character dining. A regular meet and greet maybe their only chance for their child to see that character. It's up to families to decide what they're willing to trade off for their children to meet a character if they agree to character dining over regular M&Gs or vice versa. Are they willing to fork over a ton of money for character dining and not deal with the crowded lines or stand in a regular M&G line, not have to pay anything at the moment for taking photos with the option to buy or turn down additional Photopass pics later on. From videos I've seen, character dining M&Gs seem a lot quicker and more rushed than a regular ones, I might add. Bottom line is that, there are options for different people just like there are different hotel options at WDW.
Regarding why princesses over others, well, it's a large brand for Disney. 4 billion dollars in global sales from what I heard. (Money a lot of us will never make in a lifetime.) For the most part, people come to see the big names, not the smaller ones. That's just the way it is. I know that alienating other characters, particularly ones from the non-princess films doesn't seem fair or right because they are "milking it" so to speak. I would think that Disney is targeting the non-FL/non AP holders because that's where the most money comes from. But I mean, only the true die-hards are going to come out and meet a character that a fair majority have no idea who they are whereas having a princess M&G will attract more people from all different parts of the world. Could they offer just Flynn Rider or Jack Sparrow with a regular M&G instead of princesses? Of course, they could. But for whatever reason, the princesses are seen to have greater value hence the new hall being built. That's just my two cents.
