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

[Lauront]

Edit: I keep forgetting to mention if you haven't seen the new Lahabrea solo duty it's interesting. He basically effortlessly KOs the WoL, but then Hydaelyn revives you and gives you a power up to be able to defeat him. Obviously, I'm not keen on the Hydaelyn part, but I do like that they're consistent now with the WoL being easily defeated by the unsundered without significant assistance from outsiders.

Damn, that's a much better fight sequence; and he's still said to be worn down. I assume Hydaelyn's intervention and him not taking a rest to recover properly from that is why he's weaker in ARF. So technically, that'd make him the first and one of the only characters to fell the WoL. Had a more powerful Ascian than Nabriales pursued them when the Blessing was gone, when she wasn't carrying the "bright little spark", it might've ended rather differently (at this point, I wish it had... ) I'm curious as to whether they'll give him a fight in Pandaemonium - even if of the "oh no he's mind-controlled" variety - just to see him at his full strength.

Yep, assuming you're making the connection between twelve followers and "The Twelve", it's been speculation ever since that scene popped up in ShB. Yoshida said that their souls were entirely consumed by the creation of Hydaelyn, though, so if they are the gods then maybe they were created by her as some sort of weird "tribute".

Part of me wonders if they're spontaneously summoned primals. The setting has some manner of collective memory or knowledge that survives in the Aetherial Sea, which Primals like Ramuh seemingly are able to draw upon - and apparently, Sephirot; this knowledge survives in souls in the form of dreams etc (questions 14 and 19 here touch on it). The notion of a wise and learned body of powerful specialists overseeing the world's affairs may have survived in that sense, and we know from Susano that spontaneous summons are possible. It may be why they genuinely are not beast tribe type primals and do not see themselves as such, but aren't "gods" (or at least not gods which are something other than man's creations), so much as summons of a kind. We'll see.