Lots of totally fair points. I've got a good bit of disagreement as well, but mostly within the realm of contentious personal taste.
I was going to cut this section from my post, cause I know a lot of people will disagree and argue about it, and I really don't care to defend it. But since the points keep being brought up - here's my broad opinion on UDX's output, including Epic, if anyone is genuinely interested and not just going for Gotcha's. Read at your own discretion.
I believe that even with all of the cut projects or whiffed executions - your Kitetails, Starcruisers, Poppins, or what have you - the Disney parks have largely gone in a direction that I personally find to be strictly superior to UDX's Orlando output - and that includes the bulk of Epic Universe.
I've not been ignoring the new park. I was largely let down by a number of Epic's heavy hitters and smaller offerings. Untrainable Dragon, Racer Rally, Mario Kart, Yoshi, Werewolf, Ministry, Carousel, the Power-Up Challenges; none of these have challenged my beliefs regarding UDX's lack of consistently quality output. They're not all "bad", but they underdeliver hard, and each have their own set of issues; operational, developmental, budgetary, or otherwise.
Stardust, Mine Cart, Hiccups, Unchained, Cirque; they are actually really well-done and I do enjoy them quite a bit, but Stardust and Velocicoaster are largely equivalent to each other. Same with Hagrid's and Hiccup's, Forbidden Journey and Unchained. So even within the peak of UDX's output, there exists a very similar issue to their screen-based valleys - lack of variety.
Cirque and Mine Cart are different! but I've only ridden Mine Cart maybe three times ever because of its' astronomical wait times, operational issues, and horrible queue; and you can only burden Le Cirque Arcanus with so much before the cracks start showing there too, and for me, they have.
I would take Smuggler's Run, Journey of Water, Runaway Railway, Tiana, Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog Dash, new Test Track, Soarin, Country Bears, Star Tours, Muppets RNRC, or most any other contentious Disney attraction over the bulk of Epic's lineup any day.
You really have to start getting into the dredges of those parks' recent output like Navi River Journey, Awesome Planet, Toy Story Land's ASS, or the Beauty and the Beast Sing-Along before I start prefering waiting 55 minutes for Dragon Racer Rally or Yoshi's Adventure.
I acknowledge that Disney has a tremendous foundation to work off of, and that's why even larger whiffs don't impact my enjoyment all too much. There is so much to enjoy in those parks already, that if something doesn't work out, that's okay.
The fifth or sixth whiff at USF, though? It's like jumping into a foam pit with only a few cubes in it. There's no foundation to land on so you just end up hitting the pavement real hard. MiB, Diagon, E.T. are solid, and I know a lot of you like Mummy too. But that park needed help back in 2017, and each addition that goes by without that status-quo changing is just maddening.
After a pre-requisite "
I acknowledge that Hollywood Drift exists.", I'll just ask this: When do we think USF
will get a big high-budget new redevelopment? Something at the scale of a Hagrids, Unchained, Velocicoaster, Diagon, or Rise?
Will it be another five years, ten years from now? Even the big new Epic and IoA additions seem nearly half a decade away at this point. "This just means that Simpsons is next on the docket!" I thought Simpsons would've been gone by now! Obviously, COVID impacted them real hard, and "world events" are getting in the way now. They banked on certain ideas working out that didn't. It all makes sense, but I can't act excited about any of this.