However, the details matter a lot, and one detail I’m really hoping for is historical text that explains the reasoning behind the civilization switches
That would be the surest way to make the "historical pathays" as the most immersion breaking one, so the opposite directions of what everyone is asking for.
Like, going Egypt->Mongolia because you have horses would be perfectly explainable with some fluff. "
Your empire had always been near horses, to the point where children learn to ride before they know how to run. Nowadays, horses are part of the culture, and we now ride on the steppes, ready to go on other lands, to trade with foreigners... or simply invade them. Now, the Egyptians of old call themselves by a new name that will be feared by all: Mongolians." A sensible, good explanation that makes sense in-game.
But how could you justify going Egypt->Abbassids?
"The Egyptians have succombed to the culture and the arms of the neighbouring Islamic Arabs, transforming the ancient kingdom into a new Caliphate"... Except that the Arabs are not in the game, our neighbours are Aztecs, Islam has not yet been founded and we're a Republic. How do you explain, in game, Egypt going to Abbassids without Arabs, without Islam, without them being neighbours or anything like that?
The most difficult thing would be to justify the "historical" pathways in a game where all the historical conditions that allowed for this evolution to happen are simply absent. That's why I don't understand the people so hell-bent on being restricted to "historical" pathways, or even heavily weighting the civ switching towards "historical" pathways. They would make zero sense in a civilization game, and would be, in my own opinion, ten times more immersion-breaking that having Egypt becoming Mongolia because they have horses and thus developed a strong horse culture. I hope that, at some point, you could choose how your game evolves. Either you choose the civs to pick by default their "historical" evolution (whatever that means), or you choose for them to pick in priority the "unlocked" civs (like Mongolia if you have horses), or you choose the choice to be at random (why not, after all?). But, for me, having Egyptians "naturally" evolving into Abbassids is nonsensical in a Civilization game.
You've been pulling ahead all through antiquity, and now suddenly all of your opponents are brought up even with you (that negates all of your work) or you the player can game the system to get the maximal advantage out of the civ-shifting moment, and so it doesn't do anything to mitigate late-game boredom.
Your efforts won't be entirely negated, at least from what we saw. We saw the bonuses you get from achieving the intermediate victories at the end of each ages, and they help you for the next age.
Like, if you gain enough Science Victory points (or Culture Victory points), your Ancient Academies (respectively Ancient Amphitheaters) keep their yield and adjacency bonuses in the next age, meaning that some of your scientific (or cultural) buildings don't loose their relevancy into the next age, giving you a slight push ahead against players who didn't.
And if you gain enough Economic Victory points, it's said that all your cities keep their city status in the next Age, meaning that if you were good and achieved the Ancient Economic Victory, then you'll still have cities against less competent players (or AI) who didn't managed that.
So I think they're reaching a nice sweet spot in keeping advantages but not too much, so giving you a slight ahead start but mitigating snowballing. We'll have to see how it pans out, but it seems quite promising.
Great people are disconnected
For me, it wasn't that they were disconnected more than they appeared in the civilizations where they thought they would do the most.
Marie Curie was Polish, but it's France that "recruited" her as a Great Scientist. Offenbach was German, but it was France who recruited him as a Great Musician. Leonardo da Vinci was Italian, but it was France who recruited him as a Great Artist, and Vincet Van Gogh could be considered, despite being born in the Netherlands, as a Great Artist recruited by France. Golly, we French sure are good at recruiting foreign great people, aren't we? But Christophus Columbus was as Genoan Great Merchant recruited by Spain, Nikola Tesla was a Serbian Great Engineer recruited by America, Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese Great Admiral recruited by Spain... But anyway, that's how I always saw this, and that was, for me, one of the most "historical" abstractions of the game. Not like the Gauls being able to build the Great Library while having a culture that quite shunned writing words and swore mainly through oral tradition...
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