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Unless I've missed my numbers, Shifter was announced in roughly 2017, and PF2 was announced in roughly 2018.
Subsequently, Evolutionist was announced in 2021, and SF2 was announced in 2023.
Both classes were under-whelming and under-delivering of what a chunk of players were expecting...
Shifter --- Expectation: "My character can shift from form to form like Beast Boy as utility requires it."
Reality: Very combat situational capabilities that were exceptionally limited in use and utility and penalized the user in some cases.
Evolutionist -- Expectation: "My character is slowly turning into another type of being"
Reality: AGAIN very combat situational capabilities that shut *off* outside of combat and do literally nothing to uphold the idea of 'evolving' into a new creature type.
Is a utility form-changing character the bottom of the 'creative' barrel?
Is implementing it the sign that a 'new edition' is required?
This is NOT a rip on the creative team at Paizo -- they've created incredible content.
It is, however, a concern if we see yet another under-whelming version of Shifter in upcoming Paizo products will that be a herald of yet another edition release?
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Transformation class heralding new edition is amusing coincidence at least :'D I don't think there is any correlation though, especially since I don't believe they would have announced starfinder 2e in 2023 if not for OGL thing(remastered books ended up pushing all remaining planned starfinder books to 2024)
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I think the Evolutionist is a very creative class, but it is a tricky class to build with. It's the newest class, so has yet to get new or alternative features. So it might be the victim of an edition cycle, not the herald of it. I also think how someone looks at the expectation is a big part of it too.
"My character is slowly turning into another type of being."
I tried that, thinking starting as a kobold and ending as a dragon would be an obvious choice, but it turned out to be a really bad choice because kobolds do a lot of evolving into dragons on their own, which made the class feel flat.
I found it much better to make a character starting with.
"This is my goal, what can I evolve into to help that goal?"
I found it also helps if your goal is skill-based because you gain more skills as you evolve. It also helps if you start really sucking at your end goal or not even capable of it. Your adaptive strike shouldn't be your end goal but should thematically fit in with it. Lastly, I found it helps to pre-build your character all the way to the 20th level so you can see how and when it evolves.
So my character started as a professional wrestler who relied on adaptive strikes having no personality, and ended up as a charismatic social media personality who became undead to stay alive longer to create more content to try to outdo Zo! by getting views on their channel.
So not what a chunk of the players were expecting... But works great when it comes together.