I enjoyed reading through that, thanks!

I think I more or less agree with where you're coming from. Part of the fun of roleplaying is getting to explore darkness in a safe way. Not everyone is looking for that and that's fine, but I definitely find it weird to have the core setting lean into a more "disney-fied" setting. Seems like it should offer options.

It's probably a symptom of DND becoming so much more mainstream. You can't please everyone, so the best they can do is minimally bother everyone which can end up pretty... OK. Not great, not terrible, and mostly uninspiring.

Those are my thoughts based just on what you said. I haven't heard about any of this before now so those are just off the cuff.