AV- Just about everyone who has said that Disney may have at least been justified in discontinuing EE has said economics were the issue. Who knows what angle was the most influential? Does it matter?
As for the characters, if the only reason character interaction is being provided is to meet Union minimums, I guess we can assume that when the current contracts expire, we will no longer see characters on property, since the minimum will not longer exist. I suppose those minimums are the real reason why Disney sometimes sends characters out to a children's hospital?
barrel- I agree that characters can be found in the parks, and in some ways, that's preferable. But it's also is nice to sometimes be able to meet the characters in the air-conditioned resort, without having to stand in line for 30 minutes, or deal with the unruly masses at the impromptu characters greeting areas in the park.
Hope- Your always going to find varied opinions on why something happened. I'm pretty confident that most of those who are now saying EE was under-utilized said the same thing soon after the decision.
Its pretty clear that having characters available in the resorts is going to hurt resort character breakasts. Thinking that Disney didn't realize this would be just pure fantasy. So, it means one of two things:
1- They are ok with this because there really was a large number of requests from guests, and they felt this was a reasonable way to make them happy.
2- The resort character breakfasts are busy enough that even with the CC, they don't lose any real revenue. So, rather than raise the price, CC is provided.
Not that I expect any cynics to acknowledge this...