Another thought occurred to me today, and I tried to imagine what this thread would look like if for 40 years we had been playing with Greyhawk Initiative (called, of course, simply "Initiative") and the latest UA proposed a new, streamlined version where everybody rolled a d20, modified by Dexterity, and then used the result in every round.
It's not too hard to imagine all the ways this new, innovative system would be considered "broken". I think the outpouring of h8 would be even greater and more vociferous.
You mean like when 3e came out and replaced 2e's initiative using Speed Factors (as well as the more detailed phase system from Combat & Tactics, for those of us who used that) with cyclical initiative?