The first mob for the 2023 mob vote was released (attached if you haven’t seen it) and I thought that maybe this is another experiment by Mojang. They noticed how well received and voted for the sniffer was when it added something new with a unique feature, and this year they are trying to recreate that with every mob instead of “a walking item frame” or “a squid that glows.”That’s just my theory though, and all I can say is, the mob vote might get a lot more interesting from now on in future years as Mojang realizes we want mobs with bigger and better features.
Tl;dr: Mojang is experimenting with mobs that have more features due to the success of the Sniffer (initially). The mob votes might get better.