What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[CrownySuccubus]

Or Final Fantasy X, which was a masterful repudiation of the idea that life sucks and that we should learn how to cope with it instead of trying to solve the sources of our suffering.

Yeah, I recall learning that Tidus bluntly stating that he hated his father was considered shocking in Japan for its day. Speaking ill of one's parents, especially in public, is considered one of the ultimate no-nos there. But the entire point of the story was to call out how upholding tradition and respecting our parents/superiors/elders even when they're clearly wrong can be terrible.

I think part of the reason this flew over people's heads and/or fell flat is because we were never shown the true consequences of this outside of Hermes himself.

Instead, we were shown that it works

Yeah, like I said earlier, Hermes literally defeated his own argument. By abusing his position to circumvent the rules, he totally proved why those rules were justified.

This story wouldn't have happened if Hermes had tried to pass Meteion through the proper protocols. Either she would have gotten scrapped, or someone like Emet would have caught that flaw in Hermes' purpose for her.