For neither WBP nor GCS were we able to set the scope ourselves. We were just given a list of things to change. It's only FBP patch that we were able to set the scope ourselves; we gave Relic a list of 11 high-priority items, and we were allowed to fix the top 5 of them, kind of.
Don't you think the Scope was Relic's way of telling you that you were community patchers fixing bugs and balance, not junior game designers and devs?
A lot of mistakes were made in the process. e.g.,:
- The unfortunate handheld AT bug
- Being unable to convince more people to try out Penals (top player kept assuring us they never saw the point of going Penals anymore... when they could go for Maxims instead)
- Failing to adjust Luchs moving scatter and accuracy vs vehicles in time (though this one was overshadowed by posts crying out that PTRS Penals would make Luchs irrelevant; lol)
- Setting PIAT range too low (though that was before Cromwell nerfs, and amidst pagefuls of terrible off-the-mark feedback about enabling PIAT blobs)
- Failing to realise we could have reverted some Guards nerfs to keep them relevant after GCS patch (WBP guards were balanced according to OP maxims)
- Not pressing hard enough to completely lock M4C Sherman and Command Panther behind tech (the only two call-in vehicles in GCS patch scope..)
- Failing to realise, in time, that the only people that bothered to test GCS Maxims were doing so with bulletins stacked (which may be bugged).
However, given the restrictions of the scope, and bar those mistakes that are now easy to spot in hindsight, I don't think it was possible to do something more decent than this; we could have done a different kind of bad, however.
Relic's entire role was QA. They, most of all, couldn't just 'bar those mistakes'. I think it's a little telling with what you're saying is that a lot of the mistakes are the community's fault, apparently.