So we must always take EIC decisions at face value and not look at them as corporate officers, which is what they are? We must live in a happy dreamland never-fantasy that pretends that comics run aren't affected at a corporate level? Quesada openly said there was a moratorium to creating new mutants (
https://icv2.com/articles/comics/vie...o-more-mutants). He said he wanted mutants to be like it was in the '60s, i.e. when it was a failing Marvel title and got sent into reprints. I don't know why people are pretending this isn't the kick to the curb that was.
That doesn't explain why the House of M status-quo was maintained and extended. You are making it sound like this was an event that came and went. It wasn't until Disney bought Fox that they moved past this. Hickman openly said multiple times that his run was intended to make X-Men the center of the Marvel Universe as it was before.
Grant Morrison's run opened with the Genocide of Genosha, Whedon's run had a mutant cure...so the survival of mutantdom was by no means not a running theme before. it was indeed far moreso than post-House of M.
The mutant corner is no more unwieldy than any other corner of the MU. Spider-Man is an unwieldy corner of the Marvel Universe on account of Clone Saga, and OMD, and unlike the case of X-Men where stuff like Summers' Brothers, Madelyne Pryor, and other elements eventually got addressed and resolved...that hasn't happened in the case of the Spider-Man.
Interesting that you are insulting a man who is arguably the most influential writer for Marvel after Stan Lee stepped down. Obviously Claremont has no insight into how the industry works, has no experience to make judgment calls about things, does not speak from a store of experience.
An undertaking like a comics company creating a movie studio and producing their own movie is not something that is planned or put into motion overnight, and not done without a significant amount of groundwork. That article explicitly said that the idea came in 2003, well before Bendis came on New Avengers.
However big the Avengers might have been before, it's hard to deny that in terms of influence, sales, and actual lasting continuity impact...Bendis' New Avengers and Millar's Civil War marked the most glorious chapter in its history. Whether it's better or not, is a separate thing. GO back and read Avengers #300. A major milestone issue. IT was a tie-in comic to X-Men's Inferno crossover. A milestone issue of a supposed flagship title dedicated to an X-Men crossover isn't a great marker of prestige.
In the words of Ed Piskor, author of X-Men Grand Design (one of the best Marvel comics of the last decade), "I don't want to live in a world centered around the Avengers rather than the X-Men, why join the navy when you can be a pirate".
I mean part of this thread is about Spider-Man's status in the Marvel Universe and the sub-discussion is about Spider-Man being more tied to teams since 2000 which everyone agrees is when it really started. Stuff like Spider-Man and Tony Stark, Spider-Man becoming part of Avengers Tower, Spider-Man joining the Future Foundation. And one thing is wondering how those decisions factored in changes to Spider-Man's continuity.