Remember when we thought for over a year that Hero Academy was essentially going to be a useful and efficient way to use duplicates? 
(Mar 2019)
Hero Academy was released in June 2020 without the chance of getting a costume. Remember this post?
A year later, in June 2021 we could potentially draw the costume for the hero in HA10 (likely to placate the outrage of releasing non-S1 costumes after their total rejection by beta players).
It wasn’t until Feb 2022 that Soul Exchange was rolled out at a rate of 10 - 20:1.
Why did I spend all of this time looking up the timeline of these features? Because the years of disappointment along the way is minimized by the quoted statement and they ignored a lot of beta input along the way. I bet less than 10% of the players hoping for HA to solve the duplicate problem in 2019 stuck around 3 years to see HA10 and Soul Exchange implemented. We’ve seen mods quit in that timeframe. Not only that, the features are still not very satisfying to use. The soul exchange ratio is expensive and the HA10 rate for a non-S1 hero or costume is very low; especially for a building level that takes a long time and dedication to unlock.
I’m somewhat impressed that you’ve been around long enough to see this evolution and not be disheartened by the drawn-out process and underwhelmed by the end product. I applaud your optimistic outlook. I, on the other hand, still see what could have been --especially given the early suggestions in beta for HA and the active player lounge for what became SE-- and it makes me sort of sad to see the route SGG chose instead. I’m sure SGG disagrees, as they’ve likely made a lot of money and managed to retain a relatively constant player count. Good for them, I suppose. The whale hunt will end someday, though.