Glancing at the leaderboard, I definitely have not given it some of the most repeat plays, actually. I'm one of the highest rated players, but I never paid too much attention to the "games played" column, and apparently I got my high rating with relatively few plays. My mistake.
I definitely was not accusing Chudyk of having released a retheme of Innovation. I was suggesting it would make more sense to release a retheme rather than a deluxe version, because a retheme can get first time buyers. And I meant a literal retheme.
I did indeed play lots and lots of innovation while on a computer that doesn't have flash. It's an interesting game, it's definitely not awful. But it's really disappointing that Chudyk is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, with the expansions, and not using feedback/playtesting enough, at least for 1v1 kinds of players. There is an unbelievable number of people that prefer to play base only or base+echoes only on isotropic, and many of them have played hundreds of games, so it's not that they never plan to make the time commitment to learn the other expansions. It's that base innovation was designed well and designed right. I like figures a lot... but honestly only because it nerfs the standard achieve action, not because the figure cards themselves tend to be fun, in general they aren't really. I probably would enjoy echoes with a house rule that you draw 2 echoes cards when someone standard achieves more. Simple expansions that added more base cards to Fischer randomize the game more would be better received than what we're getting. Or at least playtesting the new wonky stuff enough to make sure Age 6 figures are at least only slightly worse than Age 5 figures.
There's this trend with game collectors, I've noticed, someone asked about the echoes expansion while I was playing Innovation one of the few times I managed to get it to hit a table at a game night, he asked, "What does it add?" And that's what these new mechanics are supposed to do, they're supposed to add something, so people feel like they've collected the expansion with the cards that double other dogmas, or the expansion with the cards that let you foreshadow 3 cards by removing your hand. It's really great for feeling certain that you've bought something new before you even play with it. But it seems like Chudyk is making efforts to answer the question "What does it add?" to an extent that harms the notion of making an expansion to improve the game experience as much as possible.
I dunno, I could go on and on about things, I should probably stop talking. Releasing a Deluxe version - even more so, kickstarting a Deluxe version - seems like giving yourself a pat on the back, which I'm not sure Chudyk deserves until he can make ONE expansion that people like, and that doesn't have premature game combustions that people have to tolerate (Almanac, Measurement, Watermill, all three mostly consequences of having to change the rules after going to print with the expansion)