Personally i am so eager to move to ASA because like all my friends we play only modded ark and moving to UE5 + reducing engine bug + cleaning their code will drastically improve stuff for modder. They will probably not have to fight as much as currently with devkit taking hours to start just to crash often and offer news possibility for map making such as bigger map, weather system possible etc.
So for me this ASA update is oriented to long time surviving of the game through the modder who will have a better and easier time that currently to create mod and with in particular the portage of mods on console. We could expect that more people will try modding if devkit is better and to see more amazing stuff quicker and/or stuff not possible before. Maybe modded ASA will have quicker loading time and ASA + devkit will not required > 1T Ssd + lot of ram to run.
So once ark2 release ark1 will continue to provide healthy new content throught modding and could live for years like current Skyrim. Maybe they could even be a part of official server which will use most loved free mod such as garuda mod (ARK additions) who already state his mods will stay free for all (because of the cross plateform).
So yeah better they rework now ark to have better basis for the future.
And i disagree with the sentence that majority of player are not happy. It is just the majority of OFFICiAL players which probably does not represent the majority of their user base. Probably a big part is unofficial/single player which is the silent and happy majority.
However i totally agree with official player not happy with the server issue but servers were never means to be eternal like all virtual stuff not host personally (mmo / phone game etc are not mean to stay available forever). If you want to be sure to keep something as long as you want you must be in total control of the hosting.
For ASA price it would have been better i think to give a discount of for example 20€ for all ark owner during the first 6-12 month like some other game do. For example the remaster of dark souls did offer on steam a discount -50% if you own the original game during a limited time. It would have reward ark owner (which a good part got the game on discount around 20€) while motivating player to buy the game near release for the discount or new people could still want to buy base ark on discount to try the game while waiting since they will get a discount when ASA release.
