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

[ZeraSkiratea]

I think ppl always forget that the "sacrifices" to zodiark were A: completely voluntary and B: reversable. The souls of those who empowered Zodiarc were still completely intact, we saw this first hand on the moon. Their aether was needed to summon him but the end goal was to bring them back after a more permanent power source was found. Emet did nothing but harp on that point in ShB.

It is if not outright stated, at least HEAVIYL implied that they intended to sacrifice the new races and species that sprung forth after the second sacrifice for the third and beyond, not themself(or atleast not themself exclusivly)

And logically speaking, if the ancients had the willingness to sacrifice themselves for the good of the planet, I am sure a better solution could have been found, even if it required them to take a hit to their livelihood. Venat simply had a narcissistic personality peppered with a savior complex and it ended up getting the world and everyone/thing in it shattered, then spent millennia after gaslighting her way through to a solution that really benefited no one but her ego.

Yes, Yes what Venat did was Genocide in some definition i am not here to argue that, noone should deny that.
BUT it is pretty much spelled out(if not at least implied heavily) that, no the ancients would NOT have discoverd a way to fight Meteion, they would not have reached ultima Thule and Confronted the Endisinger. They would NOT have made it this far.
Their reaction to experience true wide scale suffering for the first time(or at least first time in a LONG LONG WHILE) was to run away, to look away and sacrifice more of their number to make the catastrophy as if it never happend.
They tried to escape, heck Emet selch and the unsunderd still tried to escape after they got sunderd, to the point where they planned to sacrifice more lives(lives they found "beneath" them) to bring back those they lost