I never even noticed whispering?? First I’ve heard about it. As for the crying, first Burnham sees her brother as an old man and learns what became of his life, and later she has a cathartic scene with the mother she’d spent the best part of her life believing to be dead. I’d say those tears are earned. If it was TNG of course, we’d see little emotion aside from a stoic gazing into the middle distance at the end of the episode. Because these are the ‘evolved humans’ who don’t even get upset at death according to Gene’s vision.
I just dread to think how these people reacted to Kira’s crying scene in “Battle Lines”...