Evony did not mess up anything. They did just fine.
You guys need to stop complaining so much and quit being so negative.
Historicals are not "useless" just because you can't draft from NPC's. If Historicals could never draft from NPC's then I am sure many of you would still capture them. Why?
1. Higher Rally Spot
2. More resource fields
3. Can draft from player owned cities and historicals
4. Helps establish lordship over an area
etc...
Basically a supercharged city. I do not believe for one second that free warriors was the ONLY reason any of you wanted the historicals. In fact, almost all of you said in other posts that warriors are useless, about the same level as workers. So hording warriors is no big deal. Well, if they are useless then you won't miss them.

Give someone free stuff for a while and they soon start to expect it. Then when it stops they get angry.