Easy developing means more games, some will be really bad and some will be brilliant.
About the public image of the engine… people isn’t stupid, you only need 1 or 2 good games to show how good the engine is. For example Unity, I thought it had bad graphics, suddenly saw Ori and the Blind Forest and Pillars of Eternity, now I think it is a really nice engine.
BTW, I hate that elitist idea about paying is better, I know a lot of people who own 3d max and they make really bad 3D, and a lot of people who use blender because they can’t afford 3d max and they do AAA graphics.