General questions and discussions.

Items that reduce morale and luck introduce a large amount of randomness into battles. When both sides have -3 morale, the final battle will be won by the one whose attack stacks fail less often (with roughly equal armies and stats). This is not right.

I've seen this idea before, and it's worth considering. But, on the other hand, bringing leadership back down to the bottom is also not entirely correct; moreover, items that reduce morale also work against neutrals, partially eliminating randomness during the game. There is some way to fight against reduced morale: leadership skill, an amulet with +3, 3 artifacts with +1. There is also the alliance of angels and many temporary bonuses.
Depending on how actively people continue to complain about this and whether any elegant ways to smooth out the problem emerge, something may be done.

Hota was updated monthly for a while, with minor changes.

There hasn't been anything like that for quite some time. After major releases, several supplementary and corrective releases were often released fairly quickly, but in general, intervals of six months to a year were always the norm. This is not entirely correct; some things require urgent release; I hope that this release schedule will change in the future. But at the moment, it is technically/organizationally difficult to release some part of the upcoming version as an intermediate version.

They're afraid to touch the garbage skills so as not to disturb the admirers of classicism, but you're talking about new cities...

We've answered this question many times. The statement that the issue of revising skills is not being considered at all because of the non-classical nature of this action or some fears is not true. The issue of revising skills has been raised and discussed for a long time, and sooner or later, certain revisions will be made. Of course, these revisions will be such (this is not the only, but a mandatory condition) that the effect of the new skills harmoniously fits into the game mechanics, according to the team's taste (and not the mythical "admirers of classicism"). And surely, the team's taste is somewhat more discerning than that of most players (and where it is obvious to someone what needs to be done, it is not obvious to us). But that's how it should be, so that something good can be done.

Nevertheless, regarding cities, we have also answered this question many times: there is no need to expect them in the near future releases, and what was once shown regarding some cities is outdated and irrelevant. In the indefinite future, it is possible to add cities (primarily, indeed, to refine old concepts); in the near future release, there is already a lot of content planned (and a significant part of it has been done) without them.