My perception of the "direction" OR took after 15.03 seemed like further development was making OR to be more like RocSim. I had no use for added features like drop-off boosters, pods, ring tails, and whatnot. I liked that OR up to 15.03 limited design to what can be simulated well, so I stayed with that version. It's just my preference.
For me, the 22.02 release is mostly about rebuilding the OR foundations in two parts: bumping Java 8 to Java 11, and improving the user experience.
1. Switching to Java 11 (and eventually Java 17) is a logical move, because Java 8 will eventually slow down and block development. For instance, I installed the new macOS last week (Ventura), which breaks support with OR 15.03, due to Java 8 compatibility issues. The 22.02 beta runs just fine on Ventura with Java 11.
Now let it be clear: the switch from Java 8 to Java 11 was not easy. It caused (and still does in some areas) a lot of bugs. For example simulation scripting was broken for some time because the JavaScript scripting engine was not supported anymore in Java 11. Also OR's 3D rendering engine suffers from the switch to an updated 3D library. (don't get me started on that)
2. It is true that some users wanted more complex modelling features to be included in the next release. However, I'm a strong advocate of not overcomplicating your program before you get the basics right. And in terms of user experience and general UI, OR 15.03 lacked
a lot of basics... OR 22.02 will hopefully make the life of a lot of designers more easy, and also attract new users (I especially hope that our UX efforts will be useful in STEM education programs that make use of OpenRocket).
Now, all your requests are perfectly valid and we are genuinely happy to hear them, but unfortunately for now, you'll have to make do with what we offer for OpenRocket version 22.02. If all goes well, the next release will again be more focussed on improving and extending simulations and modelling.
Final note: I'm talking about rebuilding foundations, but that does not mean that OR 22.02 is the most stable we can get it. There are still fundamental issues, mostly with out 3D engine (which will get a full rewrite after 22.02) and general UI. But we're doing our best, given how small our development team is
