Sometimes SC2 was anti APM. Other times, SC2 adds chronoboost / MULEs for no other reason than to eat up APM and provide an outlet for physical clicking and increase APM.

As it ends up, SC2 is randomly anti-APM and pro-APM, depending on the patch, depending on the year.

By swinging back and forth trying to cater to both camps, all that was accomplished was confusion and ultimately a loss of trust between players and the balance team. In many regards, the community swinging back to SC:BW or AOE2 is because we don't like patches that change the game so dramatically.

AOE2 seems to have hit the correct balance point, major changes that the community desires (ex: Longswords being viable after 25 years of constant buffing) but never so major that it fundamentally alters the game the community likes.

Or ex: being brave enough to throw out all sea units / Naval Battles and basically start over from scratch. (Kind of a big change but one the community actually enjoyed).

-------

SC2 patches were more random feeling and more knee jerk.