It's completely obvious what happened. Josh only has a passion for the abstract level ideas and world building behind video games. In every interview/talk/etc he's ever done, he's absolutely beaming with energy and ideas regarding those segments, and when it comes to the specifics of a game, he shuts down and just states the facts without any elaboration. Often when he has to discuss the specifics of Deadfire, he only does so by comparing it on the idea level to other games.

As Deadfire was being made, we saw the same thing with his updates. Lots of talk regarding the ideas for multiclassing, etc, then as the deadline approached... complete radio silence despite consensus among testers that the game was still kind of a mess. Then it was delayed. Not unusual, but not a good sign either considering the sudden lack of communication. (we now know that some of this is due to disagreement with management over things like ship combat. To Josh's credit, he wanted to scrap it. To his discredit, it's his fault it's the mess that it is)

He's an idea man, but not a very good project manager. The result of Deadfire being the death of the series during a resurgence of CRPGs speaks for itself.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that the majority loved the sequel, but they absolutely did not. Not even here, in this relative echo chamber filled with fanboys. Just look at all the posts the week of release.

I doubt you'll find an article on this, because almost no one cares outside of diehard Pillars fans. It's not a matter of opinion that Josh was at the helm, steering Deadfire off course and helping to kill the series (again, not alone but still primarily responsible). It's a fact.