I can’t speak to the reactions of others, and don’t feel it’s my point to tell you that you were wrong or right with the gating of masteries behind exp grinding , but I’ll tell you my reaction:
It made me not want to log in. It made me sad, like the good parts of GW2 (Play how you want) was turned into: Grind XP then do THIS, then THAT, then THIS, then UNLOCK 400 HP, and THEN (and only then) you can PLAY HOW YOU WANT. (Unless you want to play a different character, in which case, good luck!)
Hoping for a developer response!