The KH joke is probably "overplayed" because it's accurate. In a Famitsu interview, Yoshida and Ishikawa freely admitted the team had zero idea what the Ascians were for except a shallow plot device, clear up to Shadowbringers--at which point apparently the idea became "plot twist: what if bad, but SAD".

Yoshida: “We don’t have detailed lore yet for what the Ascians’ goals are, so let’s just have them be doing bad stuff in the background.”

So, to clarify, the entire time clear through Stormblood, the only thing they knew was Ascians were Bob Evils in a bog-standard plot, wearing black hooded robes like the other convoluted Square property. For the first three expansions of this game, there were deeper villains in SatAM cartoons. Heart Of Sabik? Never heard of him. Ascian Prime? Rule of cool. All the Ascians of the cups and saucers and kitchen sinks and whatnot? Who knows? Not the writers!

Which is probably why Yoshida expressed surprise that anyone analyzes the "details" of the Ascians now, and the long-vaunted Zodiark was an underwhelming trial boss.

Beating the dead Sundered horse for fanservice works for some, obviously. I'd rather they get on with the brand new stuff they've been hyping up. I don't care what new reason Lahabrea has for doing what he did, just like the writers themselves didn't care when he actually did it.