I guess the difference for me is in the past whenever a big moment or reveal took place in GoT, no matter how outrageous or seemingly out of nowhere, I always understood (even if only viscerally at first) there existed a well defined, though often deliberately subtle, logical series of preceding events and I took a lot of comfort in that. It usually means the writers respect their audience's intelligence, and when a show has that kind of relationship with its viewers you get a huge following. That's why there are a lot of disappointed people, myself included, because they went away from that in the interest of TV politics (time&money). There's no reciprocity anymore. You can't craft an intricate universe complete w/ top production quality and fantastic writing that appeals to viewers' intellects and then go for a half-hearted wrap up season where every episode might as well be titled Tying Up Loose Ends. They punted, understandably so but for me it's been pretty painful watching tbh.
It's a reminder why I'm so ambivalent about the entertainment industry. They create some amazing stuff but when they get cynical it's nuclear (GoT last season, Hangovers 2/3, True Detective Season 2, Anchorman2 etc)