Was Clan Wars actually fun?
Most of the complaints I hear about Gauntlet of Survivors are from whales who can't farm Uranium as fast in the new mode. I'm convinced that most players don't actually enjoy CW's gameplay itself. They just want to grind uranium as efficiently as possible. It's like they tolerated the miserable conditions as long as they got their sweet Uranium.
I'm not defending GoS, but let's not pretend that CW was any fun. There's a reason why the number of players participating has shrunk. Most players don't deem CW to be worth the frusteration. Clan Wars is exorbitantly expensive, the session time windows are inconvenient for a lot of players, and the bottom rungs of the CW ladder have been missing for years.
Edit: If you actually enjoyed CW, please explain what you liked about it. Just saying that it's better than GoS isn't enough. Being better than GoS isn't a high bar to clear.