I mean, they have had what looks to be a Ryu Hyabusa ancestor in Nioh, starting to link the worlds. Why not get people a little more interested in DoA by putting a small lore-crossover? I'm not talking William himself showing up: rather an Irish/Japanese girl with his silver hair, and a past...
I did some thinking about the upcoming character, and I've basically convinced myself: the upcoming girl character is likely going to be a descendant (explicitly or implied) of William from Nioh.
Nioh 2 is upcoming, there are already hints that Nioh is in the same universe as DoA/Ninja Gaiden...
I'm confused about the hate towards the recolors. It's certainly not a costume replacement, but I love choosing weird alternate colors in fighting games, and all of my experience in graphic programming tells me supporting any range of colors is barely any dev effort if the system supports it...