Leaders were a mistake in Civilization to begin with. They were trash when introduced in Civ3, although at that point they were just civilization traits at best; but Civ4 started pushing them more to the point where they have gameplay considerations which can restrict or be an unneccesary obstacle to players.
The series needs to go back to the basics. Civ2 didn't have leaders beyond the ruler titles in diplomacy screens and that was all that was needed; even with that "simplicity" the game was much more dynamic with the civil wars mechanic and which I don't think has been in any Civilization since.

>>2084550
Only thing Civ3 really did the best was population migration via workers and settlers being able to join existing cities to up their population.
It's combat and unit attribute system was also best in the series, but the vanilla unit tree was trash and the AI was too stupid to really use the system to it's fullest. Firaxis also cockblocked modders with limiting hardcaps for a lot of values in the editor with the second or third patch.
>>2084606
It was indeed. Main thing I liked about Civ6 was it brought caravans back. Still no civil wars or unhappy cities declaring independence from you yet (messy mechanics with the leader bullshit).
>>2085683
Civ4 went too into leaders and it's combat system and unit attribute systems are atrocious and possibly worst in the series. Religion was pretty good and culture aspects got improved from 3.
>>2089632
Nobody who is on the fence about Civ7 is going to pay 60 bucks still for it so yeah it wouldn't. Half off you might see an uptick.