I for one, loved World h Iceborne, got 1300 hours in it before I stopped a couple of months ago. However, notice how World sold 16.4 Million copies while Iceborne only sold 7.2. You see, highest grossing isn't everything. Many people who picked it up didn't stick with it.

It has many quality of life changes, but also may feel bland to older players. Take, for example, there is only 2 fanged beasts in Iceborne, & one of them is a variant. The endgame of the original World was nowhere near as good as 4U or Generations, or even Generations Ultimate, which was translated and ported to switch in August of 2018.

I do think it is a better video game overall, but didn't get definitively better until Iceborne came out. The Guiding Lands, Safi'Jiiva, Fatalis, even if GenU has more content to play through, Iceborne is an overall greater quality experience. However, I don't think it reversed the opinions that World initially gave people.