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

[Lauront]

It was the story equivalent of getting wasted, then waking up in bed with an ogre next to you that you thought was beautiful at the time. Very easy to get swept up in the music, though there were some moments that got me. And speaking of characters who were wasted/forgotten, what about Regula van Hydrus? The man who was the equivalent of General Leo from FFVI, the emperor's best friend since childhood, who sacrificed himself for a boy? No mention, but I haven't gotten around to the Garlemald sidequests yet... Also, lots of mourning for Moenbryda, but nothing about Nabriales, the man that she sacrificed herself to stop. Even Emet-Selch left him out (and poor Deudalaphon who may as well not exist) in his quick rundown of the Convocation seats in Elpis. Poor lads.

Also, your brain lasted longer than mine. I was practically comatose and beseeching Ra-La by the 23rd 2000-word Scion speech about the better brighter tomorrow, stand tall my friend, hope hope hopey hope hope.

Not so much as a word for poor Regula.

And preferably actually involving Gaius, Cid and Nero.

No, I'm serious here. I like Maxima and Lucia, but... OH come on!

I am especially offended by Nero not getting a single voiced line, in fact having literally less presence than (checks notes) Livia and Rhitahtyn. Actually, did anyone else find that dungeon weird? I mean I have no issue with the choice of end boss, if we're gonna die on this Fandaniel hill then let us die on it, but why Livia and Rhitahtyn?? We had Ilberd and Papalymo in a trash pack, and then we saw Moenbryda and Haurchefant. So, then... why not Nabriales and Charibert, right?

I was surprised Yotsuyu didn't complete the Amon/Fandaniel duo to form a trio of spite.

Looking back, I was kind of taken aback at how his personality seemed to change in 5.3 because I had always seen Elidibus is calm and collected compared to Lahabrea and the others. Then I figured maybe we would end up needing to work with him to keep balance because of part of Lahabrea’s speech in the Praetorium. But the way they handled him just seemed so wrong to me.

Indeed, that's where I thought they'd tie it all together, especially because the writers have gone on record saying the current state of the world (=broken into shards) is bad depending on your perspective, and already unstable. And we sort of saw this with what would've happened if the Source had perished.