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

[Carin-Eri]

Ultimately I was under the impression the whole time that the reason Azem didn't support the summonings was because they were more in tune with the planet than the Convocation thought they were and seen more of the actual world and were more connected to the actual people living off the land. When it was revealed in EW that Venat was the previous Azem, I figured that extended to her too. Hythlodeus said that part of the purpose of Zodiark's summoning was to impart a will onto the planet, where there was none before. Stopping the Final Days and restoring life to the world is one thing, but spending time to cultivate it and then sacrifice a portion for their new god seemed to be the red line.

I wish they went more on that angle than any of the Dynamis nonsense but we got what we got.

I wish the dialogue going on here was more along the lines of "Hey writers, you've wanted to make her a sympathetic character from the beginning in ARR, I think you missed the mark here, can you fix this or make us understand better" instead of "Venat is evil and a terrible person and the writers are bad for trying to make us care for a villain" when the character herself and the intentions behind her existed for years longer than the current writing for her has.

My knowledge of the game's lore isn't overly extensive, and haven't been a player for too long (eight months), and will acknowldge that this may have been addressed at some point in the past. Therefore am putting this as an honest question rather than anything else:
Was it always the intention for Hydaelyn's story to play out the way it did?

I mean, to be honest, it doesn't really feel as if it was.