I'm generally with you on the gaming market + lowering standards thing, though frustratingly the writing is on the wall there. However, "massive" AI improvements are somewhat a pipe dream. Not only are they more time consuming than a lot of alternative improvements to the game, but they have a cost beyond the $ to make them; they offer diminishing returns on "how well does the AI play" against "how much does this slow the game down to a crawl while the AIs spam calculations". Getting the AI to react differently (IE better) given x stimulus is one thing; making it fundamentally better in all respects is not realistic.
Especially when everything from MP stability to bugs with new content to the awful UI are objectively bigger issues and in some cases significantly easier to fix (UI being the simplest, as it's a matter of adding text to tell the player accurately what the **** is happening or will happen). Although the AI isn't stellar, the state of the game puts it down the list of things that need attention...because heck it actually works even if it isn't close to as good as an experienced human. Give me the update where "de-sync" does not = "absolutely must re-host" first any day.
