How do you stop loud user requests from ruining your core onboarding experience?

We made the classic mistake of building a heavy feature for five vocal customers. The extra settings completely ruined our main workflow and caused new users to drop off right after signing up.

Stripping that code out completely made the app feel fast and simple again. It was a huge reminder that adding features isn't always the answer to growing a product.

What signs tell your team that it's time to delete a feature completely instead of redesigning it?