I don't think you'd want content designers writing multiplayer code.
Why, exactly, could content developers not work on a number of the balance issues in the game?
For instance the AI is still a bit bad with debt. Why not design some dynamic historical event chains that would lead to political reform by cancelling the debt(s)?
Or perhaps we could look at the Reformation and put in more events that fire at ahistorically high levels of Reform Desire that would give the AI incentives to delay the Reformation?
Or take the trouble with coordination against blobs, why exactly cannot we design some events to help AIs with common interests unit against a common blobbing foe (e.g. in game the Ottomans or even the Mamelukes can chew through the Balkans, the Caucuses, and Poland all while Austria and Russia ignore the juggernaut growing in favor of kicking Poland when its down)?
Or perhaps have some events during a coalition war (e.g. triggered by having 90% WS) that allow you to do something like put your dynasty on a throne and reduce AE with one of the coalition members that would make coalition wars more interesting and strategic rather than a mechanic to be abused or totally evaded?
Or could we not get some more ways to interact with the Revolution beyond playing whackamole for decades, perhaps have some method by which the reactionary forces could get an anti-revolution triggered modifier that undoes the majority of the Revolution's tedious and annoying effects by building up a bastion of reaction (e.g. schmooze the pope, invest in repression, and sacrifice development to kick out the revolutionaries).
There seems to be huge amounts of core game balance issues that mods have made a respectable dent in from time to time, yet content design is always focused on some random patch of clay that will not effect the overwhelming majority of games not played there.
I could be wrong, but it seems like a lot of manpower goes towards things of very limited impact for most games while core mechanics are imbalanced. When balance in core mechanics is addressed it seems like it is almost uniformly done through coding which in turn seems to limit what coding can be done for other issues.
I am surely missing something, but could you explain just a little bit about how you decide who focuses on what for patches? I certainly cannot make sense of it from my point of view.