Big business isn't "updating" Warhammer for "modern audiences", they are purposefully destroying your childhood heroes to break your will

In ancient times at battle, armies would often torture and kill hostages in front of the enemy just to demoralize the other side.

That's basically what we're seeing now, these execs don't really care about gender equality, they just came up with an excuse to destroy strong role models and make us watch.

Straight white men just happened to be the biggest target, but from there they will attack anyone they can find. In Hollywood you can be a black transgender lesbian in a wheelchair and you'll be criticized for not being a furry. In 40k you're attacked first for not accepting female space marines, then for not allowing Tyranids to eat you, you racist.

It's a moving goal post "just two more weeks" situation, it doesn't matter what standards they set, it'll never be enough, they will always invent something new to destroy whatever we love, with the explicit purpose to make us upset.

Point and case Sarah Conner in Terminator: Dark Fate, you'd think they would love a strong female character, instead they turned her into a loser just as they did with Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones.

Warhammer is more resilient to this corruption than most, I guess because it's less mainstream and more focused on the gray areas (yes the Empire aren't always perfect but it's that or chaos) and watchful against corruption from the alien or the heretic than the "Palpatine is a sith lord wuuuut?" naivety of Star Wars.

The Warhammer equivalent of Jedi are Inquisitors, so naturally they are struggling to corrupt a community that shoots first and asks questions later. Star Wars is inclusive, it doesn't have equivalent terms for heretic, daemon or Xenos, never mind using them as insults. But it is blind to race or gender, which is why every GW release is now a bad ass woman or man of color giving orders to scared white men.

Possibly the biggest power of 40k is the Emperor, basically Warhammer Jesus. I'm sure some execs dream of somehow making him look like a weak old man, and they're trying hard with the primarchs (probably why they brought them back, because it's hard to retcon), but it's a minefield of not completely pissing off the fan base.