What the current Android leadership simply don't understand is that there were a lot of Android users that bought Android devices because they didn't like iOS, not because they couldn't afford it. iOS 7 caused a critical mass of my iPhone using network to want to switch to Android, and now with Lollipop the reverse is happening, since if people wanted the iOS experience they might as well get the real thing.
Design fascism works when you're in a niche, but will never be mass market. Windows Phone is similarly lauded in design circles but mysteriously fails to sell, and this is why. The crowds praising all these "improvements" are the sort of people that actually thought Windows Mobile was not only tolerable, but a good idea.
My gut is Google think this is the only way to get iOS users to switch, and they aren't too concerned about existing users, but the side effect of this is that all of the major smartphone OSs have reached the same level of out-of-touch ness that we had prior to the original iPhone coming along.
