Drop zones were fantastic and I will not be playing ranked until they return

"However, we understand that Ranked, in this state, resulted in some players feeling like a lot was left to random chance dictated by your starting position - time pressure from the ring, starting loot pool, proximity to other teams, and optimal rotations. It also removed aspects of agency over your playstyle"

Literally anyone who actually plays Apex knows that dropship doesn't even come close to resolving any of the above issues if you aren't stacking. I don't have the agency to stop randoms from making totally insane drops if they happen to be randomly delegated the authority, and I can't stop them from hurting or ruining my ranked experience. Just because players technically have the tools to communicate and avoid hot dropping gold loot Mills doesn't have anything to do with how the game plays in reality. Much more importantly, dropping in the middle of 10 other squads is not a consistently fun challenge in a ranked context, and neither is trying to convince my Octane not to do it. 

Drop zones made ranked a much more engaging experience when solo queuing Plat through low Diamond. If you dropped launch pad, you know that devastated will likely push you, and with that knowledge you could rotate in advance to stuff out an int or punish anyone peeking too aggressively. Starting from a consistent and known state gave each match a lot more depth due to the knowledge it handed players. The relatively uniform density of squads made it easier to plan rotates, as you always had a rough idea of where each team would be early in a match, and you were rewarded with knowledge of how maps played with opportunities for easy thirds or safe rotates. The more uniform squad density also made fights much more consistent, and didn't punish you with a 20 minute walking simulator from quiet POIs like landing with the drop ship does. Having a tough rotate means actually having to engage your brain somewhat and determine how your squad's kit could be used in the various pathings you had available. 

While you might face some of these challenges during a dropship match, they became common problems that you had to get good at solving with drop zones. And best of all, because the drops were random, you had a level of guaranteed variety in play. The experience with drop zones just felt so much more consistent than the drop ship. I can guarantee I had way less "bad" drop zones this season than I did fruitless hot drops drops at storm catcher on another - even at a "bad" drop zone, I've got much more agency than I do in the middle of 10 other squads.

And that's not even to mention, with drop ship, drop zone, teleportation, any spawn system; time pressure from the ring, starting loot pool, proximity to other teams, and optimal rotations are fundamentally random with random zones, random loot, and a sever with 60 players. You wouldn't have made a BR in the first place if you didn't want players adapting to unpredictable game systems. Moving back to drop ship even if drop zone did face some issues is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I'd posit those issues were genuine problems with the game in a ranked setting which were exposed once you moved to a spawn system which wasn't intended for a casual lobby.

"we’re hoping to give you back full control and put your fate in your own hands" is just hilarious. It's so on the nose I feel like we're getting trolled. "It also removed aspects of agency over your playstyle". The supposed agency we're getting back is totally offset by the fact that none of the choices we have are any fun.