Heritage is an experiment. While all other MtG formats to-date (to my knowledge) have been managed by WotC or a central committee, Heritage is the first format that aspires to have the player base make key decisions such as bannings and unbannings through a democratic process*.
I believe that the time is ripe for a format managed in this way, as Discord and social networks have made it easy for the player base to discuss, debate, and vote. Furthermore, this can be made a fluid and nimble process in which the player base comes together to make decisions as quickly as they need to be, without needing to appeal to an overlord.
Best of all, a community-driven format should provide a level of reassurance that centrally managed formats do not. Players will seen as stakeholders in this format and not just merely obligations or customers. We all want a play experience that is fun and balanced, and we are empowered to do our part to make that a reality. So when decisions are made, you’ll know it’s directly related to the play experience your fellow players were having. Community disagreements may ensue, but occurs in every format regardless.
It’s yet to be seen what will factor into the community’s decisions, but that’s the exciting part. Bannings may be made on sentiment alone, or perhaps based on data that the community decides to collect and share. In my opinion, either or both are fine. If the majority of the community feels overwhelmingly bad about a card or deck, that should carry as much weight as waiting for the card or deck to hit some arbitrarily high win rate.
Finally, how nice will it be to see the next wild Supplemental product come out and think “Phew! Glad I don’t need to worry about that one!”? Instead, you can take a bit more time to explore and test the latest Expansion set — the card design and the world design that WotC worked hard on — the way that it used to be when you first got into the Eternal formats.
*I stand corrected that other community-driven formats include Canadian Highlander and Pre-War. We’ll be sure to learn from their successes and mistakes!