It’s very easy to forget that when you have an inside perspective on ROS and the development of ROS 2 it’s “easy” to see that there is progress, that things have improved and that even for companies/devs that are deeply embedded in ROS 1 it will make sense to take a good look at ROS 2.
One of the questions/topics that always comes up when I talk to potential and actual users of ROS is “what is the status of X?” or “do you think I should be looking at Y?”
There’s just so much development going on and it’s all so scattered that for outsiders – or even for “casual users” (if those exist for something like ROS) – it’s very easy to lose track or not be up-to-date about it.
For that alone I believe the conclusion that @davetcoleman reaches in his summary above (and in the report) about putting more effort into dissemination might actually be a good one. But I must say that it’s very difficult to get anyone who has had a look “at ROS” in the past to re-evaluate their opinions: first impressions apparently count just as much in software engineering and robotics as in “real life”.
Edit:
It’s also very easy to forget that if you’re familiar with something (including the process followed to construct it and its remaining shortcomings) you’ll more easily take a tolerant view of missing functionality, incomplete features and unexpected behaviour.
As some of the interviewees make clear: words like “nightmare”, “unstable”, “high failure rate” and “hopelessly” were apparently used to describe ROS (1) components.