I am constantly amazed - no frankly saddened and disappointed - that so many posters criticise (often rightly) the current public transport offer, comparing it unfavourably with systems elsewhere in the world, and then when someone attempts to make changes to improve they are dubbed 'empire building' or schemes are shouted down because someone, somewhere loses out.Why so negative? The Mayor feels ( and i think with some evidence to support him) that he can drive better change to services & influence more local investment decision making in his region with control of as many levers as possible.
The country is not about to entirely revolve around public transport, with it being the overarching financial spending priority. We are not about to become Swiss. There is no freebie money pot about to come our way ( reparations from Italy over the Roman invasion?) so everywhere at once can have a Swiss style public transport system (the Swiss have been working on this for 100+ years - we are starting from where we are now, and we are not Swiss).
Improvements are only going to come on an incremental basis, and somewhere has to be first, then second etc. There is not the money, or the confidence, to splash improvements everywhere. People might not like the overarching politics of Andy Burnham - but let's leave that aside and judge on the quality and direction of the policies as they affect public transport in his region. As you @DarloRich point out, it is a bit rich for so many to demand more regional autonomy and then complain when it is granted to one as a first step.
One place / area has got to work financially, operationally and politically first. It is no good pointing to foreign systems as the final template as they will be working in different economic, cultural and political frameworks, which may not be easily recreated here without major upheaval.
As you say, there won't be a wall at the boundary. Yes, on the 'wrong side' of the boundary there probably won't be the full fruits of the changes (in service or fare offers etc., but I wouldn't expect any substantive worsening of the current situation to the majority), until those areas follow in the same footsteps. That may not happen for some time.
Yes, mistakes will be made, and idiosyncracies produced, but these can be righted over time. There will be side effects that some do not like.
If the complaint was directed at increased spending on public transport I can understand that view, and obviously there is a line somewhere as to the balance, and we will all have differing views on where that line is. But so often it is an individual who is seeking to improve things that is pilloried - I can only guess that our culture of knocking people down to the lowest common denominator, plus an industry view that improvements are somehow a criticism of existing practice (and therefore personally of the people involved) and therefore is to be resisted and denied. This is simply a nonsense - most diligently work with the framework they've got and are not in a position to change much.