I fully believe that they saw what parts of the game were criticized the most and will spend a majority of this development time working on those things - more dialogue, new and returning furniture, and upgrades for different shops. They've gotta know what the fans want, and would be dumb to ignore that. They took a chance on their focus with NH (the designing part of the game), and while I 100% consider NH a complete and great game, I think they will listen to feedback and are working to reinvigorate the charm that a lot of people lost between NL and NH.
If I'm being honest, I think the focus the AC devs took with NH is also due to "knowing what fans want".
Look at a lot of the common complaints about NL (dialogue aside, obviously): "Isabelle isn't letting me place this PWP in this place, why can't I place furniture outside?", "my villagers keep moving out if I don't play, but they're my dreamies and I'm the mayor! Why can't I lock them in?" "why can't I control where villagers move in? I'm the mayor!" "Why is Isabelle not in the office during an event?! I can't do Important Mayoral Business!"
On top of that, you've got the fact that elaborate themed dream towns became incredibly popular online, you've got the fact that resetting for layouts was popular enough that even Aya Kyogoku herself mentioned it in an interview as being the thing that inspired terraforming, you've got the fact that HHD and Pocket Camp were at the very least reasonably popular... it's unsurprising that NH turned out that way when fandom overwhelmingly seemed to be prodding it down that path, even if it ended up being kind of unknowingly.
What makes the fact that people have completely ignored this in favour of going "whyyyyy" worse is that the people who say things like "NH isn't enough of a life sim" are also the people in the ACNH Rant Thread saying things like "why do I have to go to Blathers to assess fossils?", "why do I have to go to the airport to go online?" or "why is the drop-off box giving me less money than actually interacting with the Nooklings when the shop's open?", stuff which gives off the Exact Opposite Impression imo, and it worries me!
The fact that a good portion of Animal Crossing fandom is blindly chanting "QOL, QOL" without actually considering it's going to tip it further into Design World is worrying on its own, the fact that a good portion of the Animal Crossing fandom is
that media illiterate that it somehow both wants AC to be super convenient and bending to your every whim
and more life sim (life, of course, being a thing that is Always Easy And Convenient) fills me with a great dread... because when that inevitably doesn't happen, yay! Horrible. I don't look forward to it at all!
on a slightly more optimistic and slightly more "haven't posted this before" note: I generally think there's going to be more furniture (I'm not expecting double the amount NH has, but at the very least a bit more), I think having more shop upgrades ultimately depends on if they decide The Cabinet worked or not, and dialogue... not gonna lie, don't think that's getting any better for various reasons (two more personalities than before, Animal Crossing Is Rated E For Everyone, The Expectation Of A Near-Worldwide Launch, and of course You Are The Mayor, And You Are Encouraged To Literally Do Whatever)