No, I feel much the same way man. I think your analysis of "They don't want evil, they want edge" is spot on. I was having this discussion with the wife a few months ago where I mentioned I noticed a trend of Twitter/Tumblr/Soycuck minded people not letting evil people BE evil. In particular - I can't remember what piece of media it was - but I remember it was a giant group of people complaining that rape had been used as a narrative element in some show/game. And not only were they complaining that the act of the rape was allowed to occur, they were upset there wasn't any admonishment of the rape within the media. However, I remember the person who did the raping was unequivocally an evil person. So the simple fact "Bad person do bad thing" wasn't good enough to these viewers. They needed a dissertation talking about WHY it was bad and to regale the user with a lesson on why its bad. Fucking mongoloids.
On top of that, I've also noticed a trend where it's impossible to portray someone having done horrible acts for justifiable reasons. The thing where you go "Man, he sure did a lot of bad shit. But I completely understand the reason why they did that."
Two examples I can use to illustrate my point. One recent, one not.
Recent - Anyone who has played FF14 knows how great of a character Emet-Selch is. I consider him one of the greatest villains in Final Fantasy, if not a lot of video gaming. For anyone who doesn't know (and I'll spoil this for anyone who is interested in playing FF14 [spoilers for only through Shadowbringers])
although he starts the game as a leader of essentially nigh-invincible beings (similar to the Q) set on causing catastrophic disasters that kill untold amounts of people in your world, by the end of the expansion you can understand his motivations. For a very brief summary, the world you inhabit was actually split into 14 parts many millennia in the past. And you live on the 'main' part from which the others were copied. Emet was one of the leaders of the people who existed before the sundering. He had to witness everyone he loved have theirs souls ripped apart and split into 14 parts. He literally views everyone that is currently alive as malformed husks and mockeries of the people he once knew.
The reason he's causing the natural disasters is they are the catalyst needed to rejoin the parts of the split world back into the main world. He's just trying to return everything back to the way it was when he was an inhabitant of the world. And he doesn't care how many people he kills, because they're literally only 1/14th of a person to him. They're literally not-people, treated as insects. The fact they are split is the greater evil to him. A literal perfect case of moral relativism. So by the time everything is said and done, you get his motivations and most people will look at the circumstances and the choices he was given and think "Would I have really done any different had the same happened to me? How far would I go to bring back my friends, family, and everyone I loved?"
However, there is a giant faction of the FF14 player base who despise Emet and never allow themselves to understand his point of view. "Emet-selch is a genocidal monster", and that's as far as they get trying to analyze his motivations. I've witnessed these 'fans' literally get hostile seeing anyone discuss why they like him, and can understand his motivations. They seem completely unable to break out of a linear 'black/white' dichotomy of good and evil, and just never go beyond it.
Old example - I used to read a webcomic called "Dominic Deegan" during the early internet. Quality of the comic notwithstanding, one plot point I remember was interesting was when they were focusing on orc tribes. The orcs were analogous to Native Americans, where they had tribes each of which had very different cultures. So in it, you end up meeting two orcs through different story lines, and you find out they're 'married' to each other. However, they are on exceedingly bad terms with each other. When you find out the reason why, the author basically ended up creating a really fucked up trolly problem. The male orc was a visiting dignitary from one clan during his early teens and witnessed the girl orc's family get slaughtered due to a series of events outside his control. The host clan treated orphaned girls as basically worthless due to their heavily patriarchal structure, and were about to slaughter the girl as well. However, the visiting dignitary orc stopped the murder by claiming the young girl as his own. Under his own tribes traditions, he could get her out and at least allow her a life within his own tribe to grow up and move on with her life. However, the host clan's traditions demanded he 'make her his bride right then and there' in order to take ownership of her. So he was basically forced to rape the girl to save her life.
So like I said, fucked up trolly problem. Given the settings and its restrictions, what's morally worse? Allowing an innocent to get murdered when you absolutely have to power to save their life? But by saving their life, you're literally forced to rape her as per dogmatic religious and societal beliefs. Which is worse. And like, bad writing and ridiculous scenario aside it's at least an interesting thought experiment.
But no, everywhere you read all you see is the reductionist position "Rape becomes justified, trivialized, and defended tirelessly by Dominic against all detractors". All nuance stripped away. Just "Bad thing bad, how dare you try to justify it!"
I'm looking forward to it. I like the Persona formula, but I can see why people wouldn't want to play the games due to the focus on Japanese High School settings. Taking the JRPG formula with social/reputation aspects, and seeminly applying it to an isekai setting with reputation building with factions sounds absolutely fucking amazing.
Part of the real reason is the major diehard fans of D&D still live and die by the 3.5e rules. 4e is seen as the beginning of the end of their hobby where it keeps getting more and more watered down and having the edges sanded down to appeal to people who care less and less about the game itself and just want to be part of the aesthetic. And it doesn't matter there are other systems and settings that might suit normies more. They want to be part of the popular thing, even if popular thing has to be bastardized in order for normies to enjoy it.
Edit:
Don't forget they want to remove all racial modifiers too. Can't have inherent natural physical abilities, oh no.