I remember CoH2 being discussed a lot. What would you want from it, what would you expect from it, how could it measure up to all of those costume pieces, people wouldn't stop CoH1 so what would you do about its place in time, etc etc...
These are questions I am not jealous of a dev having to suss out.
I can definitely say that the combat being both fun, never feeling like it takes too long, but still allowing you to RP during even the hardest of content is what makes it for me. If CO was fun, I could deal with it not having the costume options I want. Supers get new costumes all the time. I don't know how many pieces were missing for Sue Storm's 90's costume to come out, but some costume changes can end up redefining a character.
CoH issue 0 and issue 24 are so insanely different - so much was learned. That is one thing we can definitely give them, there was a long time to learn a great many things, and THeM, MWM, Valiance, etc, are definitely at an advantage Cryptic wasn't when CoH first launched