Please, do not get me wrong.
MMP had done a great and fantastic job of maintaining the ASL world.
But maintaining is not innovation.
Innovation is presently coming from the third party producers.
I have to agree.
In a way, it is a pity that not much innovation is borne my MMP. I want in no way to discount the achievements of TPPs in this regard. However, as a consequence of innovations not coming from the 'official' source, they remain limited to TPP products and there is no overall unifying thread. Take the railway stuff you are working on currently - chances are, they'll never make it into the MMP ASLRB. Although it could benefit ASL as a whole.
On the other hands, there do exists good reasons for not adding too many innovations. One of the strengths of the ASL system is not only is versatility and potential to be expanded on, but also the stability of its rules body. The ASLRB has not really changed much in all those years. As a result, it is the stable 'common ground' on which everything else rests. It would be a catastrophe, if the ASLRB would be subject to frequent change (Warhammer anyone?), because with such a complicated system which takes years to learn let alone to master, frequent changes would wreak havoc in confusing everyone.
Yet, IMHO, MMP should not just stand by and leave innovation solely to TPPs. The 'compromise' could simply be to add such things to an expanded Chapter E or to optional sections of (mainly) Chapters A-D. This way, MMP could permeate the whole playerbase with innovations which TPPs simply cannot do in the same way. At the same time, by keeping these things 'optional' the stability of the basic body of the rules would be maintained.
What I find especially regrettable is the following: I believe that once a good innovation is developed by TPPs, it is factually burned for MMP. I reckon, MMP then just can't go along to 'copy' it or to add it to their rules - unless TPPs would consent to this. And then we are on grounds on which rights, copyrights, and maybe funds might get involved. MMP, I guess, would rather abstain from the hassle.
At the same time, I think that 'innovation' should be carefully considered by TPPs. Some might be beneficial. Too much might have drawbacks. BFP has introduced a lot of new terrain types, aircraft and all sorts of things. These additional rules they might use in (any) of their future products/scenarios. Now do we want to maintain a parallel collection of BFP stuff to keep 'up to date' there? If several innovations become interdependent on each other within on TPP universe, something of a parallel world is developing. Personally, I don't have much interest in that.
von Marwitz