Nexon's decline in traffic

Removing areas and simplifying things could be an effort to buy themselves growth room without having to worry about increasing minimum hardware requirements.

Yeah, could be it.

In any case, that's not a good excuse to ruin such a beautiful area with thorough and well-thought maps and storyline (Masteria).

Victoria Island was better before, but I can understand the changes they've made to make it easier to new people. But I really don't get a lot of other changes.

If you have a game which has overall earned you over 1 billion dollars since it was first released, you think well before making any move. And if something could remove the worry about hardware requirements, but has good chances to ruin the overall game quality, you don't do it.