Throwing my two cents in. Not gonna name names but (romangodcamper) some of you babies need to actually finish your island before you even 'need' new content
Kidding aside though the development focus on the xmas event was well spent and a success, but you are exactly right the new buildings are weak and exciting content is needed.
This could be done through economic competition (could do 4 player adventures in competition with each other building the best economy on your slice of the adventure), could be pvp.. could be high end content grind if it really pushes economies to the test making it difficult to achieve with adequate (sadly now improved pop building past 150)
Island expansion would be fantastic but we havn't even heard them even talk about it as far as I know....
The epic workyards could be good content update IF they are given the ability to really ratchet up a selected production chain efficiently (should be a grind to unlock the most efficient level of the workyard but when done should save space and kick ***... and I am not sure I see that in them as is)
All this aside though we don't really know what the business model is - maybe they do have enough new people activating accounts and spending gems high level content isn't their best way to make money... compared to buildings without clear value.... that they can suffer the clear attrition of active higher level players.
That said we aren't all depositking where we literally do rage quit, so when content comes out we can always re activate... I think what would make you feel better Ron is to roll with me for a while on zues. We can work on upgrading a badass gold chain on my island or something ridiculously grindy where you dedicate all your work and effort to my resource accumulation. It will be fun.
I also think a lot of the burn out we all feel isn't necessarily just from the day to day of the game, I think it's because we have been lied to before around PVP and the hyper active player base is dying to find out what the plan is around the long term development in the game. With the pointless communication we do get around buildings and BB cards it just kinda serves to bring us down, knowing that the outline we crave to have fleshed out is either being withheld or worse just non existent.
We need a mole to find out if all the decent developers have been shifted to Annon or if the future content in Settlers is more than just bad buildings and meh adventures!