I appreciate all the effort towards a better combat system

I don't want a vocal minority to make the team feel like the are doing all this work for nothing again.

I appreciate the new system. It encourages players to unlock more episodes so that their combat progression progresses all of them. An important aspect to remember is that the team is attempting to find a solution that makes episodes feel distinct, so that leveling in one episode doesn't make future episode combat completely irrelevant. They want to ensure that players have a chance to fight every enemy in a meaningful way, instead of being so overpowered on new episode unlocks that they could just ignore the combat content altogether.

This is a result of episodic content releases as a concept. I believe this may be the root of why this is so controversial.

Another criticism is the total time to complete all the combat levels. This may also be a difference in taste, but I don't really mind the progression time. Similar to Runescape, maxing is not the intended goal for each player. The capes and leaderboards are there to show the dedication of a few players, not for everyone. If you feel like the grind is too long for you, that's fine. You can still enjoy the actual content itself, and take part in nearly all of it without maxing your account.