Have SM Entertainment overcome their curse with adding members to their groups?

I'm not sure if adding members also created huge problems with other companies and groups - well, for T-ARA it did, but that was due to severe mismanaging the incident. But for Wonder Girls, KARA, 9Muses etc it seems like adding members went smoothly.

So I can't say for other companies but for SME, it feels it always did.

When Super Junior got 2 additional members with Zhoumi and Henry, the super junior fanbase ELF revolted en masse.

When Yeri got added to Red Velvet, she got a LOT of hate thrown at her (and still does, from to time).

However, now with NCT, members are being added all the time and it feels SME's particular curse with added members is a thing of the past. Recently Shotaro and Sungchan were added (the 22nd and 23rd member!!! ) and I don't get the sensation they're being rejected or hated (yet) like added members to SM groups before.

Maybe it's because NCT is already a massive group, so a few extra members aren't an issue to desensitized fans to it. Or maybe it's the high skill level (Shotaro's a great dancer and Sungchan a new NCT ace in the making).

So, what do you think? Are current-gen K-pop fans more mature in this aspect than they used to be?

Or is it because they're added to already massive group NCT? Or is it the way they're introduced that newly added members to NCT don't suffer the problems that added members in previous SME groups encountered?

Quote from Kouss

Yeah NCT isn’t getting backlash because if you are a NCT fan and hate new members being added, your kinda stupid.

Literally told you it would happen from Day 1

Personally i wouldn’t mind Aespa adding another members cause i hate Odd group formations. With 4 members it’s not so bad, but still.....

? Told what would happen?

As for Aespa, I still can't get over the fact that SM were able to find and use 20-30 male trainees for their boy groups of which many are aces and heavy hitting power houses, yet in the same time frame only found 4 female trainees for their girl group(s).

I feel sad for all the other talented female trainees that spent all those many years of training at SME.