It's because they know that a big chunk of their readership are going to complain violently about any goddamn thing they do, but they'll still keep buying the book.
Meanwhile, whenever they actually try new things - new characters, changing the old ones, new stories, non-superhero work - they're punished for it even if the books thusly produced are good. Quesada started out his run at Marvel as a very experimental EIC - Morrison's X-Men, the Tsunami line, a move towards pulp-style adventure and away from express superheroics - and almost none of it worked. Their fans demand new things, but not too new; they want everything to stay the same, but complain about reversed deaths and retcons.
I'm not sure I would deliberately antagonize the fanbase to this extent, but good Lord I know why he's doing it. The biggest problem comics have today are half the people reading comics.