As one of the programmers, simplifying the code for us is a very good reason. It's of course not a reason by itself - after all, simplest of all would be to remove everything and have nothing left at all - but some of these things were pretty messy.
Another thing is, that certain object types conflict with the overall intentions of NeoLemmix. We have frame-stepping, clear physics mode, etc, to help with execution, because NeoLemmix's philosophy is that the focus is the puzzle, not the execution difficulty and/or figuring out the true layout or workings of the level. Radiation and slowfreeze were far more harmful than helpful to this goal - yes, there were some new puzzles that became possible as a result of them, but almost every use case for them fell into one of two groups - (a) a level that was needlessly difficult to execute, or (b) a level where the only purpose those objects served was a trap. And again, the key word here is "almost" every use case.
While I do feel that there are valid points regarding how those culls were handled and discussed, ultimately, "what do people want" is a factor, but not even nearly the sole factor, in making these kinds of decisions. It can definitely be the difference between an idea we're on the fence about being implemented or not; or it can mean we give some serious consideration to an idea that we wouldn't have if it was purely on a "what do the programmers want to include?" basis (for example, I likely wouldn't've put in the limited-count exits and entrances if it weren't for that there was a clear demand for them); but it isn't the ultimate authority on what NL does or doesn't get.
And in this case - I'm saying, as the programmer, that -
- Slowfreeze and radiation won't be coming back. They don't fit well with NL's general philosophy.
- The majority of gimmicks will not be coming back. Wrap is the only one that might, but it will be much less like the old NL wrap, and much more like Lix's wrap. Even here, I would need some serious convincing, as from what I've heard from the Lix community, it's rarely useful in single-player levels, and is more suited to multiplayer ones. This is because of both code tidiness, and that it makes things too complicated for the player if they have to remember, identify, and deal with a large number of gimmicks.
- Just to clarify, the above means that ghosts will not be coming back.
- The removed talisman conditions will not be coming back. This is almost solely due to the code complications that arise from them; I might reconsider some of these if I can think of a much cleaner way to implement them.
- The behaviour of level edges will not change again. Every time this changes, levels break. Had I been in charge of NL at the time the change to the ceiling was made, I would not have made that change; but this would have been precisely on the grounds of "keep it as-is, because of the level breaking potential a change has", and this is an argument for "pick one and keep it", not an argument for either specific behaviour.
- Triggered animations have a decent chance of returning, if there's interest. This would need to be interest from people who actually plan to use it, not just from people who think it'd be nice if other people used it.
- Anything not listed here, feel free to ask me, and I'll let you know whether it's "yes, let's look into that right away", "it could be considered", or "no, that won't happen". As a general guideline, my starting point will be "let's not re-add too much stuff, we don't want to get into a state of repeated culls and unculls" - but if there's a really good argument for a specific feature, that might override. But let's keep that in a new topic, or on PM or Discord.
Consider the above to be final for as long as I'm in charge of NL - and if Nepster takes back over, then I suspect his stance will be even more strongly in favor of not reimplementing any of the above.