I'm sure you already know this, but the plumes stack because people are stacking, that is the reason why. As you pointed out, one alone will not kill you; when people stack. The fight is (after the gear check) about positioning and a bit of coordination, as well as being on your game and understanding your class. You're right that FATE zerging does not teach you any of these things, but as mentioned, players should take it upon themselves to figure things out if they haven't already before even looking at doing Titan, much less the other primals.

I wish people would stop calling foul on the fight because they can't do it, or the group they're with can't do it. There are no promises that even a premade group will do Titan flawlessly, but it does give you a static group to work with IF everyone in the group doesn't give up after 3 attempts. The fight is fine; individuals may mess up (getting knocked off), but it is generally the larger portion of the group that does (stacking pools and trapping people), making it far harder.

I'm aware latency and the animation/casting bar bug/check-in system isn't great and makes Titan far worse, however in isolation the fight is fine, maybe a little hard and intense, but otherwise doable. The problem is either the infrastructure, which I think a lot of people agree on, or the player problem, where some people just aren't ready for the encounter (for whatever reason).