Where is the producer's letter?

[Painting]

It IS hardware

This statement is not right. It is not necessarily hardware at all. There is NO EVIDENCE of whether it is hardware or software that I have seen.

the problem is that the game is not optimized to run on all types of PC hardware (unlike most games released today).

Citation needed. The world of x86 systems is - and has been for some decades - nasty to develop for. There are all kinds of variables that must be taken into account, and no one - I mean NO ONE - can test every permutation. It is too time consuming and too expensive. I work on software that runs on Linux and we can't even hope to keep up with the released versions of one Linux distribution across multiple vendor's hardware (with 3 GPU vendors and 2 CPU vendors). So you release with risks.

It IS about hardware .... Somehow, they did not build RoR and Bree graphics correctly so it will run on most PCs (or all that meet basic specs).

Again, Citation needed. Do you have any evidence Turbine is at fault here? I experienced some time ago issues with patterns not filling in, so after a load screen, I'd be walking on invisible (or gray) floors with very boring rocks, and often floating trees (where the hills should be drawn). It would finally fill in after 10-20 seconds, and things from there were 50-75 FPS smooth. Know where the bug was? ATI's driver. No change in LOTRO code required to fix it.

In reality, the entire code stack goes from Turbine code to DX9/DX10/DX11 code then into a graphics driver and throughout is interacting with various forms of firmware (both in the CPU and GPU) as well as the operating system. If drawing an object only went through code from 3 companies I'd be shocked. If it was more than 10 it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Is there an issue with LOTRO? Absolutely. That is what the customer experiences. ...but while that means Turbine needs to put some attention into the issue, it doesn't absolve the responsibility of the rest of the folks in the stack. It's also why it's critically important for folks to file an appropriate technical support request with the information about their hardware and firmware levels... so Turbine can get the information it needs to reproduce and diagnose the issue. Forum posts don't help.

p.s. Still hoping we see a producer's letter in January.