I do wonder how much of this comes from popular culture depictions, like in Jurassic Park they're not bringing back mammals running underfoot. Or land before time, there are only dinosaurs shown. And lots of other media. Probably because dinosaurs are cool, and weird prehistoric rats aren't.

I think my conception was that... Some small dinosaurs survived the asteroid and then became mammals. But no, they were already there hiding in burrows and evading the dominant dinosaur species by being warm blooded and mostly nocturnal. It's kinda wild to imagine a rat next to a brontosaurus.

Right below "I looked on the wiki"

That sounds exactly right

"Hahaha isn't it silly and weird that we're going back to HBO Max?? Look at all our creators who are baffled at the backtracking!"

I don't think you can really meme your way out of that foolish initial decision.