But now I would like to ask the following questions.

The original goal of TE and VT was to make Heroes a more competitive discipline. And sports are primarily about competition between people, aimed at identifying the strongest.

Why do we play? I, for example, primarily play to get emotions, to be happy or, conversely, to get angry when something goes wrong at the most inappropriate moment; without this, the enjoyment of the game is already reduced.

This is the argument of a casual player, not an athlete. Because for an athlete, the influence of factors that do not directly result from his actions is an obstacle to the original goal - identifying the strongest.

That is why TE/VT removed as many of these factors as possible. The pinnacle of this is mirrored maps - external factors are equalized, and only the actions of the players remain. The only randomness is the heroes in the tavern; ideally, they would be equalized as well, but they couldn't figure out how to do this without harming the gameplay. Another random factor is the abundance of treasures, or rather, the guessing game of choosing a direction, but this is still a player-dependent factor, even if it's based on intuition rather than conscious decisions.

Earlier in the topic, there were phrases like "VT players don't like to lose according to the map layout," and this is true. Moreover, winning according to the map layout is not very enjoyable either. Because for an athlete, victory is a reward for his efforts, for his skill, for the time spent in training. This is well felt in post-match interviews with athletes from ordinary sports - random victories usually do not cause emotions; they simply state that they were lucky to win, the score does not reflect the game, etc.

5) they removed all unnecessary artifacts and buildings, changed the balance of spells, why? to make it more convenient?

To reduce the factor of luck in the game.

If mirrored maps were initially included in the concept of TE/VT, then fewer balancing changes could have been made; the layout is still the same.

But since mirrored maps were not even in the project at the time of TE's development, an attempt was made to balance the gameplay on initially unbalanced maps. And for this, yes, it was necessary to change the balance of a number of random factors (starting army, spells in the guild, artifacts, skills, etc.).

Now, the SoD players are complaining that Baratorch should make changes to the guild and get rid of one-sided maps. TE/VT was created with a similar logic; they just went further and deeper.

So, it turns out that you can sit and micro-manage the neutral units with one hand during a battle, while drinking beer and eating popcorn with the other? And is this related to the image of a "pro" as a person who is not lying in front of the TV with a bottle of beer, but rather someone who is clicking the mouse on the screen?

Just go to any serious offline championship and watch the game of top players live, and you will immediately be convinced of the opposite :)