What happened to SB (story)?

[Daralii]

But if we hadn't killed him off so soon, we would have to suffer through SE's self-insert OC for more patches!

I definitely agree with your first point, though. Liberating Ala Mhigo and Doma felt way too easy, though the characters in the quests were generally well-written (with the exception of Zenos). So we knocked out a castle and that's that? At least post-Ala Mhigo, they acknowledge the continued presence of Garlean military I suppose.

That said, I think SB is infinitely better than HW in terms of writing-quality. HW relied way too much on the tired cliche of "zomg evil catholics!!!" which is so uninspiring. It also had some of the most pointless character deaths I've ever witnessed, and the one actually meaningful character death we could've had from the end of ARR was essentially retconned in a ridiculously cheap way come HW.

But every character is Square's OC. They make the game.