Well, Eve has never been about conquering. It is a "now go play" game. That being said, I do absolutely agree that more content should be developed and released. You'll get no argument from me there, I 100% agree that CCP should be releasing more content each year - and not even just expansions, but world news, etc. I mean, even the number of clothing that is in-game but not in-game is a good indicator. Everyone said, oh, it will be a Christmas present. Well, how many years have gone by without being able to actually use that stuff? Obviously clothing isn't very important in the grand scheme of things to non-RPers, but it is a nice microcosm of some issues.
But as far as difficulty and the rest of it, that's the price gamers pay for gaming going "mainstream". We can't argue that we aren't the geeks in the basement anymore then complain when the games start catering to a wide non-gamer audience.