While I can't dismiss the whole dumbing-down point made about how Disney tried to align POTCO according to the systems of that particular era, I do disagree that children and kids were their only targeted audience. I feel this to be so from links I have found and read from original POTCO developer - Mike Goslin. (I can share said links here if anyone is interested).
Goslin's words are important in that he claims back in 2008 that a lesson learned from POTCO (thus far, then) was that the game was attempted to be geared towards all fans/audience type members of the POTC films, not just children/kids alone. *Important to note is that he said this at a tech. conference in Austin, Texas one (1) year prior to POTCO's "old islands" being obliterated and destroyed.
So, if POTCO's developers felt this way and were careful as to how they should target ALL ages and fans of the POTC films, I wonder too why they chose likely to make the mistake of dumbing-down everyone's playability knowing full well that technology itself always advances on both kid, teen, and adult computer systems. Sure, not everyone will choose for themselves to make the choice to upgrade (once technology does create 'that opportunity') but, as game developers, why choose to look backwards instead of foward in lieu of catering the livelihood of the fate of the game towards everyone's technology - if technology_alone was the sole reason why POTCO's "old islands" were destroyed as everyone assumes?
Was Disney's decision then (towards replacing the old islands with the new) something other than technology woes experienced by players at the time? I suspect there was and
@ElizaCreststeel point made about invasions being one of them does make better sense.
But, is there any other conclusions we can come up with? Thoughts?