It's hard to ever connect with you, because you don't know the definitions of several words/phrases either I use, or you attempt to use.
Missing the forest for the trees means you're too granular in your thinking and missing something wider... you are, as instead of take the point, you instead lean into my point with further specificity in the recent patch(es). ie you don't refute "forest for trees" by giving DEEPER specifics, you're making my point for me.
There is a LONG list of 'improvements' to OW design that they've wanted to do since OW1, which come with OW2 regardless of 5v5 or 6v6. You make your argument MUCH weaker by tying these ideas to the number of players, when there is a large group of design goals they've publicly expressed. Better to learn how they actually design, instead of cramming in your pet theory into every decision they make. Self sufficiency, reducing OHK burst, lowering the requirement of constant teamwork to move, making it more free to play your own positions -- a lot of this would be in the OW2 sequel regardless if its 5 or 6 players per team as that all, AND the lack of fun from the tank role were all widespread criticism in OW1. This is design for the average player to sell skins to new players not for YOU, not for the competitive game, not for optimized play. When you constantly view the results of their decisions through such a narrow lens makes your analysis perpetually off the mark, overly granular, focused on the 'tree's' not the forest the devs do care about.
Objective to say the tanks got buffed. Subjective to both judge 'overall power creep' and 'overall oppressiveness.' You routinely conflate Objective and Subjective points and I wish you learned what these terms mean and how to not abuse them.
Subjectively, for me, NOT being able to pick a variety of heroes should be the metric for oppressive design. If I read you right, you think instead focusing on the feeling of working thru the stats should define it. We won't agree, these are subjective. However I don't even think it is actually accurate comparing the worst of either game. I'm not sure either version of 2x shield would ever lose to anything an OW2 tank be balanced to do, as they physically can only be in one place as 1 player, not hide an entire team behind them always as was the case in several metas/matchups in OW1. I know you don't care about this, but seeing daylight instead of only-tank abilities is a huge improvement to my enjoyment of the game, even if you might argue its placebo as the characters are overall tankier and they keep adding immos to supports. Those annoy you, they don't bother me so much, because at least I'm hitting a player, not endless shields/tanking CDs, that's a huge improvement to me.
As to your comment about armor, is Objectively wrong. As it's actually the MAJORITY of damage that is better against new armor to its -30% counterpart, look at the charts, even -10 per hit armor I believe, especially benefitting bodyshots and projectiles. The major change is in instances to BURST the tank, especially with HSs. This is why the last LAN had a double projectile dps meta, afaik. Obviously when you add in the other tank buffs, this version of Tank is the tankiest tank that ever tanked... but at the same time its easy to forget the max mitigation of a Rein Dva when he had 2000 barrier health and if your tanks were useless picks, or getting out played, NO DAMAGE could be landed EVER. I don't think either game "wins" this point, as it's all always going to be subjective. I prefer 1 tank, as at least you can sidestep it and will have points to shoot something meaningfully at some stage of the game, even when losing you get to, wasn't the case in OW1 losses.
OBJECTIVELY they are trying to reinvent the game towards fixing a long list of pain points, as with Occams Razer we can sync up all the themes of their decisions together and use their own explanations that while maybe are misguided, do sync up with the moves they've made, making further conspiratorial thinking unhelpful. Many if not all of these ideas would've come either as a real or perceived benefit (marketing gimmick) into the sequel. You make your argument weaker by tying it to your pet theory, pumping it full of hot air that is easily cut through with Occams Razer.
I play all 3 roles, Sam, always have. I've liked OW2 more when the tanks demanded respect, at launch and now. I do see why the game isn't serving your level of play, and your role we actually agree on that point (probably -20% dps passive should return). But it never did. And the devs DO NOT make decisions for your tier. They don't care about you, and maybe they should. But you're enitrely missing that when you assume they "feel forced" to do something, when they never were doing that 'objectively'.
Power creep sucked in OW1 when everything exploded... then I sorta got used to it. Power creep for sustain in OW2, I don't need, but equally I didn't mind the burst damage metas before either... They can't service both goals. The game will always bias towards some style of play, be it burst, brawl, mobility - something always 'wins' and always has regardless of player format.
The gameplay of Tank in OW1 was WIDELY panned for 1000 reasons. The devs have a no-win situation on their hands - as EVEN IF you get the gameplay YOU want, it causes massive problems for the mass playerbase who play the game in an entirely different way to you.. that's the "Forest" the Forest they actually are designing for. We had the game where tanks had to work together to function, a vanishingly small % of players were interested in that gameplay, bottlenecking queues for years - which should be a literal definition of "an unplayable format" if you need to wait 10, 20, 30+ minutes to queue a squishy role, because the format needs 2 tanks... and NO counter argument exists that undoes the overwhelming math of this point, it is objective reality - dreaming of a an alternate history where everyone liked tank @ the 97% tier never did happen and never would happen. Better to need less of them to make a match and continue to improve the format we have, skill trees may help other OW2 painpoints in the future.