I don't want to go too far into derailing this thread by talking about
BattleTech here; but, for what it's worth, I'm hoping that
Alpha Strike (which, I should note, will be presented initially as a Clan Invasion product) and the
revised Introductory Box Set will help bring flesh blood into the
BT franchise.
But so far as different eras go, Catalyst have made a point of providing support to a wide variety of time periods, and not sidelining support for one in place of another. It has taken a long time for them (and for FanPro before them) to bridge the gap between 3067 and 3085; and while they have been doing so, they have also been publishing works set further back in the "classic" timeline.
In fact, as recently as earlier this year, they had been publishing historical files fleshing out the late Star League era as a proper game setting, with two volumes covering the Amaris Coup and Kerensky's Liberation of Terra. And over the next couple of years, along with their work on the Dark Age and beyond, they will be publishing new books looking at the Succession Wars directly.
And once the "3145" material covering the Dark Age is done, they will be making their own move to a new time period; one which Catalyst themselves will have full control over, and which (for the first time on over a decade) will be a "future of
BT" that has not been spoiled to the audience by a semi-related game system.
Yes, there will be those who stick with their preferred era, and will bypass or ignore what comes later (or, indeed, earlier) in the timeline. And for soem fo those players, this KS project has been useful to them. But while I await to be proved otherwise, I'd like to think that
BT as a whole still has a future ahead of it, even if it may never re-gain the lofty heights it held once upon a time.