Agree with you on many of those points.. their marketting is a bit over the top and they have sales through the year offerring different freebies, but not always the previous ones. Its a bit odd and it's guaranteed to change every year.. so while not subscription, sometimes borders that model in order to keep it up while its maturing.
minor rants aside, its now a decent product. I've used previous few versions and finally think I'm ready to ditch LR 6. It took a bit, but figured out my last beef with it... the colour profiles were always way off for the 80D (not sure if others).. turns out most of the time the profile is simply over contrasted.
it also does have many Photoshop lite type features beyond LR's offerring.. so that is nice. They even fixed the compare a bit (you can now drag the line showing before/after), but for some odd reason won't do a side to side. The only other minor nuisance I wish they'd fix is the ability to automatically save to a folder in relation to the folder you're working on vs a centralized folder or current folder.
I am with on1 for many years too (since the PPS 7.5), had a great times, as well as bad times. I have used on1 initially to only add some punch to images being processed in LR back at those days. Later on, on1 felt like a more complete package. Then came the version 10, which was first to offer HW acceleration and it caused trouble to some users - consistency problems, crashes, slow-downs, etc. But on1 fixed most of that in 10.5 release.
Then came the RAW generation. First version (2017?) was hardly usable for us, but as an effect tool, it was still quite OK. The problem (once again, for some users) was related to the cataloging module. In previsou generation, on1 reintegrated Layers module and made some advancements to masking (luminosity masking, ranges, color masking) and it felt more like a standalone product.
They have even produced the LR migration tool, which does not migrate only your catalogue, but tries to convert the edits! The problem with LR ppl though, was simple - they always want more. You've got keywords? We want keyword hierarchy, etc. kind of stuff.
Recent 2020 release (as well as previous 2019.6) are solid products, even if there is still list of some known issues. I have decided to stay with on1. Tried also a Luminar (which gets some press hype) and Exposure products, but on1 is still further in some areas. And if you are not satisfied, there's always a refund option. On1 also really cares about user input, though it is clear that you can't fullfil just anyone's wishes.
As for some questions/objections mentioned here - video and mobile products, are imo going to be sold separately, or in bundles. But that's just my opinion of course. As for presets, you have an Extras manager as part of the product, you can freely reimport your previous year collection of presets. I am not sure, but the product most probably even keeps them in between the versions. Some ppl report, that noise reduction is not on par with some other products and as for some minor annoyances, I might add one too - after hitting the space bar to see the whole image (Fit mode), it does not return to the previous zoom positin, like LR does, which is a bit annoying, when you do some precise masking and you want to switch to see the whole picture.
But - other than that, on1 is a nice package of functionality. The next battle is going to happen in the AI area. Some products seem to really accent that - namely Luminar and on1. Computational photography is the future, hence the ability to replace sky in one go and make it blend seamlessly is the way to go. The "fight" with LR is a tough one, as if you pay for PS, you've got LR in the package already. But - the competition is always healthy for end users ....