I'm going to (attempt to) look at both points of view, and come to a conclusion.
Players: They want 3x speed, because it's more fun. As a player, I can confirm that higher speed is more fun to play. Construct buildings faster, more loot/resources, and one thing I think is pretty big: Faster troop movement. Noblemen take 35 minutes per tile to get from one city to an other. If someone tries to go from one city, to a target that's, let's say 5 tiles away, it would take 2 hours and 45 minutes to get there, and the same to get back. If you only have 1 nobleman you'll need to hit the city 3-5 times before you take it(we'll assume 4). If we assume that the nobleman lands at the exact time it says, and that he instantly goes to attack the city the second he returns, then it would take 22 hours overall to capture it. but by that time, they would have gotten back 22 more loyalty, so you'd probably have to attack again. When everything takes more time, it means that people who prefer to play casually get pushed away, and insomniacs will dominate the world(a lot of the time). By speeding up worlds, you allow people to build up quickly, and have more fun playing(the insomniacs still do well, but now people have a chance).
Devs: They want 1x speed. I understand why they would take this stance. They want to make everything polished(Polish), and give everyone the best experience possible(I hope). Not to mention they have to mess with the code, which can get annoying when you try to get rid of bugs sometimes. And if the servers get too stressed out, it could crash/cost too much money to support. I would hope they're truly are looking for the best for the players. If they can get 3x speed in the future, that means that too many thing may be going wrong(Keep in mind they see the game very differently. We don't really know what the game is supposed to be like at it's 100%), and they need to switch it to 1x so they can address the problems, and get back to whatever speed. This makes sense.
Conclusion: I understand(to an extent) how each side feels, but I'll have to side with the devs. This may be only a temporary choice, at least until further information in released, but if their intentions are as predicted, I think it's okay. I'll probably play less TW2, and may get back to Grepolis, but judging from the fact that we're like the audience of a play(If the actors forget some lines and improv some things, they know something is wrong, but the audience only sees the play), We should be patient and wait for any further disclosure. Sorry for the lengthy post, but thanks if you read it.