From a business standpoint I can certainly understand FC. They were pretty much betting the company on Conan Exiles, and it ended up selling more copies in the first week than AO did in the first year. Funneling that money back into a couple of long declining games instead of further developing Exiles and try to make it an even bigger success would just be stupid.
That being said, I think it's right to expect some kind of development considering the high subscription fee FC charges for AO. One of the one of the most expensive subscriptions of any MMO, on top of microtransactions, just to keep the lights on in the server room? That just seems unreasonable...