I'll never forget when that question was asked in a 'Leadership Training' class over seventeen years ago. My immediate response was reality is reality. Now I tell my team members (six figure + people for the most part) that I just try to make sure that their perception is as close to reality as possible.
There has been quite a bit of chatter about various very new releases and how they change the 40k 'meta'. It only changes things for the better. RT was released in '87 and twenty six years later those people have $ now. Not everyone is interested in playing Apocalypse, but I've never met a 40k player who didn't want to see an Apocalypse game. We now have an 'approved' (not really new for most of us long time players) method that's a lovely stepping stone/window into Apocalypse. Escalation is not Apocalypse, it's actually small/tiny by comparison, but that's not a bad thing.
Tourney play isn't going anywhere, it will change/evolve as it always has regardless of the 'game'. Games have a built in 'competition' element...duh. I know that a whopping few weeks since these new releases hit the street it seems like the sky is falling. Don't worry, it's not. I think it's rather funny that most of the 'angst' is self created. GW is in no way 'dividing' the community, only the community can do that.
Deep breaths, it's all good!
"All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so."