That happened back with the initial estate system implementation. The revised estate system fixed a lot of those problems.
And, frankly, it would take at least as much work on my part to scrap the estate system and reimplement communism as it would to fix the estate system so that it can mimic communism to a first approximation. So since I think the feel of it is good for the game, I'll be damned if I'm going to put in that much work just to go back to what we had 10 years ago...especially when I don't think it would be nearly enough to actually bring the interest and excitement level in the game back up to what it was 10 years ago.
Unless I'm forgetting one of the overhauls, the estate revision was mostly about removing the estate coverage for authority and productivity, no? Which was removed because it created a huge need for maintenance work and made over-successful realms no longer able to expand or even conduct reasonnable wars. I don't recall the revised system doing anything other than removing this control/production requirement regions had, and lords' ability to protect knights from bans.
I'm not arguing the workload, but that's another matter. Of course, coding resources are limited. I'm not really sure what you have in mind for the next overhaul, so it's hard to compare.
How it's phrased doesn't matter. It's still taking away part of his income.
Does that really matter, though? If we had a communistic system for years after the IRs were made, without anyone ever raising a fuss, maybe that's because they are compatible? If you cut a noble's estates by half when he switches from warrior to courtier/diplomat, so what? What's he going to do with that gold anyways? He doesn't need it. He can't even recruit a fourth of what he used to be able to recruit. Courtiers gain no new way to spend gold, and diplomats do not gain a need to spend it either. Reducing their income does not, in any way, prevent them from enjoying their new career path. All it does is help prevent too much of the realm's resources going to people who have no need or use for it, and who will either send it to their family coffers or make ridiculous uses of it like holding tournaments while their realm is at war.
