Is Marvel going somewhere with all these character changes?

So I haven't been really following Marvel for the past 12months or so (stopped right after the AvX event), and only returned to its universe recently after getting tired of hearing my friends talking about the last year's god of thunder series. And damn were they right, the 1-25 issues were a real treat which alone made catching up with the current MU's status quo worvthwhile.

However, while I still haven't caught up on quite everything yet so I might be walking around with a few blindspots... but I can't help but notice Marvel is somewhat revamping their flagship characters in not so discreet ways. And most definitely awkward.

Thor is now a woman (forseeably for the next 422 years from what I understand); Ironman is adopted and apparently a complete dummy when compared to his newfound sibling Arno so now he's selling malicious apps; poor Captain America has gone full-on senile and not just in mind this time, Wolverine is AWOL for a few years (most likely for giving lukewarm characters like x-23 and daken a chance to grow, yay...) and I won't even dare ask what's going on with the hulk (wtf is doc green seriously, what is even the point of having banner then ?)...

But hey at least peter parker is back (was he ever really gone though, that's another question for another day). Superior Spiderman alone was hard enough to work through, I don't think I could handle a "Superior MU".

Personally I am not too sure/happy about these changes, but I'm certain within a few issues runs things will be mostly be back to normal...as it was with that atrocity that was superior spiderman. Which leads us to ponder : why bother in the first place?

I absolutely understand that most characters need a refresh once in while, and also that a lot of readers were getting disatisfied with last few "key" events bringing in little to no repercussions for the marvel universe... but a lot of these recent character changes seem to be rather poorly thought-out plot place-holders, and mostly here just for the shock factor and most importantly lacking vision or meaning. But like in many things, it is easy to jump the gun before seeing how it all unfolds.

Do you guys believe these overall changes are part of some sort of grand plan (possibly a new event/ new universe) or has marvel really gone tits-up for the forseeable future?