S1 was marketed as a mature love story where the breakup is with mutual understanding. Because the show in the first 150 episodes garnered such traction and fan following, the makers seem to have misconstrued the reason for the success of the show.
S3 was marketed as a story of falling out of love and finding your way back to love. What the audience received was the patchy narrative of a story no one associated with Kuch Rang, least of all the audience who knew the character sketches inside out.
The makers seem to forget that story is THE king, what made S1 was the treatment it received. Not Dev, not Sona, and not just Devakshi. When you think the audience is obliged to watch the show for nostalgia and nothing else, you display arrogance as a creator. Why exactly should one watch pati, patni and wo, when there are more dramatic and entertaining shows which show exactly that?
The essence of the show was lost in the first episode when they chose to bring in the nonsensical child swap track. Just chemistry and romance does not make a show. The self-awareness needed to understand why S1 worked seems to be missing. This continuous drop in the quality of the content is testament to that.