Certainly in the context of talking about a publisher like Blizzard nothing but raw profit is of any concern. Arty ambitions is the something for the game studios that appear and die off, not for the publisher that seeks to endure.
SC2 did something very smart with its last expansion with the coop mode, and it became very popular despite being only sort of fleshed out. I could easily see that kind of game mode making for a hit RTS if it was the central focus, and had the standard MMO-lite stuff like loot and missions and raids and story and customizable units/armies and support for other group sizes.
They are focusing on games that can monetize user-base actively via micro-transactions and subscriptions RTS games are not really capable of this.
Last example i can think of is CoH 2, which was disappointing and the 'pay to win' commanders drove me away from it quickly. Plus i think original CoH is much superior game in terms of balance and fun.