the opening of this new land has tanked overall attendance.
I don't disagree with your post, but I think 'tanked' is a bit of an exaggeration. M-Th last week was extremely light. Friday-Sunday the parks were busy. But yes, as a whole, attendance is most definitely well below Disney's projections and below average attendance values for this time of year in the past. But tanked? That's hyperbole.
If Disney hadn’t goofed so bad with ROTR this would probably work because we’d all be distracted talking about how the ride blew our minds and the ride would get us to engage with the next generation of SW. But Disney didn’t so here we are wondering what bandaid they’ll stick on their parks next to fix their summer crowd problem.
This 100%. Disney Imagineering blew it on ROTR and TPTB wanted to open GE 'early' in order to start earning revenue from their new land as soon as possible. For the most part, I think they are in the short term because of the early revenue on their high margin products (Oga's, Savi's, Droid Depot, Dok's), due to the 'newness' of the land, but, they also overplayed their hand in the long run. No offense to Deluxe AP holders, but I personally love that they're blocked right now. However, I believe Deluxe makes up the largest share of APs at DLR, and I think the third week of July is going to tell the tale and we could see the Deluxe AP's potentially get unblocked before August. But the bigger issue has always been pricing and value in the grand scheme of things. That's the problem. I think they've reached a breaking point and even if the flex pass gets Disney a ton of new AP holders, it won't make up for the amount of time Deluxe holders are in the parks relative to the price increases that this tier in particular has endured over the past few years. You can only take away so much before you reach a breaking point, and when they took away parking and nearly doubled the price of Deluxe APs between 2015 and today, you can't blame people for not renewing.
On a side note I personally feel FOP and Pandora as a whole are overrated and when we're at WDW we visit that land once for maybe a couple of hours and don't spend money there, but, I can appreciate Pandora as a well themed and beautiful land, and it is impressive for what it is.
All that said, I want to bring up an issue that I haven't seen on these boards (which I personally and fully believe contributes to lower crowds) and that's the 'minimal' offerings Disney currently has for the Lion King. I know, they have the Tale of the Lion King (a lovely and well produced show, but difficult to last through in an area with zero shade), and a small merchandise booth as well as the AP corner, but this is the 25th anniversary of what many still believe is the pinnacle of the Disney Renaissance. Plus, they're releasing their "live action" adaptation this year. Crowds would be flooding DLR if they had a lot more offerings. Character meet & greets? Some special food offerings? More merchandise celebrating its 25th anniversary? Sneak preview? C'mon Disney. Yeah, it probably wouldn't shift the balance of the crowds, but I needed to rant about TLK somewhere.