Sounds like they're trying to get into the area that a lot of third parties have taken with Bastions, like the Strongholds & Followers book that MCDM already published or Walrock's stronghold's homebrew on DM's guild. Probably a good idea for people who don't use third-party material but seems too late and unnecessary for me now lol.

It might be a good combination, though, since it does look a little similar to me like a combination of those two systems. This makes sense since I think Matt Colville said he adopted systems and stuff that had been in past D&D versions, so it makes sense an official variant would have some similarities. I'll probably just use this as more options with Strongholds and Followers, which has been working for me so far.

As for the cantrip changes, nothing much to say except I love them all.