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

[Lauront]

As I recall, Yoshida said they intended for Shadowbringers to flesh out the motives of the Ascians, but it was Ishikawa specifically who wanted to "humanize" them, and also her who had the idea to have Emet travel with the party so the player would grow attached to him and give more weight to his perspective. Yoshida was actually skeptical of that at first. And he was definitely pretty baffled about the overwhelming response to him in the space immediately after Shadowbringers - I recall him having a tone along the lines of "okay, but, he's killed so many people...?" and "I'm surprised so many people took him at his word?" and wondering if the giant Talos scene was the reason so many people were praising Shadowbringers's story? He did come around to Emet later, and that the majority of the playerbase liked him and wanted to honor his wishes, but there was definitely a learning curve involved.

I don't doubt that - I think she must've helped him to some degree in formulating answers to some of the interviews on that (frankly, I'd need to go over them to see how his thinking changed... which is a bit more effort required than I am motivated to put in at this stage given my views on the plot ), it's more by this point I'd have expected him to go in with that understanding, particularly since that long interview he gave in Famitsu, where he explained Emet-Selch's disappointment with what he saw in Azem's sundered shard, seemed to hit the nail on the head from my POV on why a being of the kind Emet-Selch is would be struck by grief when confronted by the fragmented remnants of their old friend, only to realise it's not the same person, once more dashing his hopes. On-going learning curve, perhaps.

I'm not being really serious, but a friend joked that with the approach to Venat post-game, she wouldn't be surprised if they just quietly saved the Ancients in an alternate timeline in a Lodestone sidestory and basically never speak of Venat again. I-it maybe doesn't feel entirely implausible at this point...

I could see them doing it, in all honesty. It is the one potential upside I see to the time travel route they employed. I was a bit surprised that they committed to Venat's soul being gobbled up in the process. My concern was that she'd be returning in some facet... but seems not.

Uhh, yep... I think Hermes being understandable to the player is like... an agree-to-disagree kind of thing. It has to be, because I've seen enough people say his character made so much sense to them and that he was the most human, and I just can't assume these people are lying..

Yeah, I've seen that point made as well, and it does not really make much sense to me. As Fandaniel, he separates himself both from the ancients and sundered for clinging to life, as he puts it. I'd say that sort of existential dread he exhibits is an outlier thing amongst humans too. Heartily agree with the rest of your well-worded post.