Looking over my personal usage stats and my clan's usage stats; and contrasting with the community usage stats, I noticed something interesting. One of the least-used archetypes, and one rife with frames with bad or polarising reputations, is the hybrid damage buffer/CC frame. Meanwhile these are really popular in my Alliance, as we have a few stalwarts spreading the good word. (I'm doing my part for Banshee propaganda.)
I can say that the usage stats reflect a sentiment I hear a lot: "just use ". In this case, Nekros and Octavia dominate this particular role at 3.2% usage apiece, reflecting community belief that Octavia is the best frame in the game and renders other CCs useless. Meanwhile there is a harsh dropoff in the buffer/CC archetype after Octavia (or Nezha if you count him). The next most used is Mag at 1.5%, then Frost and Zephyr at 1.1%. After this, the rest of the archetype all have less than 1% usage.
Other support archetypes are in a similar place: the healer/buffer is dominated by Wisp, and the damage/CC archetype by Khora.
A second factor is the "death spiral". If a frame has a bad launch or a rough patch as the meta shifts around them, they seem to never shake that bad reputation. For example, year on year, even with extensive positive coverage, Zephyr sees very little change in equip time. Yareli is Turbomurder Water Nezha now, but it's still a common sentiment that she's squishy and has poor damage potential. Everyone has an opinion about Sevagoth even though nobody plays him.
A third factor, and I think another kind of death spiral, is unappealing meta builds. For example, Nyx is dominated by Assimilate builds, Banshee by glass cannon builds, Caliban's meta being a complete mess, one-button Frost and Loki builds, and so on. People don't invest into the frame because it has been typecast and the builds ossify, and if the builds aren't fun to play, nobody invests or experiments, and the cycle repeats.
So, that's my take. I'd love to hear your opinions!
The problem is that all of that is completely unnecessary in 99% of the game people actually play (we're not talking about Steel Path endurance). Armor stripping especially is a null point as Pillage is an incredible subsume that is used on a lot of nuke frames that struggle with high enemy armor. Is Banshee's Sonar a huge dmg buff? Sure. But I can bring my Revenant with 105% Roar subsumed and any good weapon to a Steel Path Circulus on Lua, stay to rotation C and not have any issues killing enemies while not having to worry about a thing because of Mesmer Skin. Mesa can full armor strip in two casts of Pillage while having 95% DR, constant shield gating and an auto aim weapons for low effort crowd annihilation. Also, why would I bother supporting my teammates if I can instead get the job done myself? Why would they bother supporting me if they themselves can bring a frame that can get the job done themselves?