The paper game franchise has been in decline since they abandoned 3.5e. The 4e rules were meant to appeal more to on-line gamers and such and lost a huge amount of the fan support they had gained by doing 3/3.5.
Actually, you could probably argue that D&D has gone downhill since Hasbro bought out Wizards of the Coast.
Yeah I remember an article were it said why they changed the rules. It was basically to appeal to new gamers and be able to use it more in games. That and the sales were falling. As I said the new neverwinter doesn't appeal to me as I loathe MMO'S.
I know its not a traditional MMO but you still have to play on there servers. I gotta wonder why Atari picked cryptic and not someone else.