Well you can change hosts to ones Matt like and doesn't like, and I'm glad you understand how easy it is.

Most hosting companies have some sorts of limits and some have wordpress related limited specifically.

If a web host is not able to provide the connectivity to the things you want or need, just switch.

From what I understand of my limited reading about the issue, wp engine may have to change how they advertise the use of wordpress related terms and they may have the mirror the plugin and other repositories as they may not be able to pass through access to the WP servers, this is a hindrance for sure, but it's not a full stop your site can't function.

Of course it's bloated for many use cases, because it is possible to do so many things with it (many things many may never need, sure) - poorly developed is not how I would characterize the development with WP - I've certainly loudly complained about some choices over the years, but the development is pretty robust compared to similar projects I have seen over the years.

If wordpress wants to change how they allow access to their servers based upon whether a host is making millions promoting WP, it's fine with me - they would not be the first company to decide to limit access at different thresholds and ask for more money based on usage.

It may be shocking and a big change, but the individual website owners can get the wp files and plugins and deploy in thousands of places around the world, and it takes just minutes in most cases.