It continues to astonish me that Matalas and co have adopted the marketing strategy of "Hey, these people who hate all modern Star Trek and have actively fostered toxicity in the fanbase like this season". It's really turning me off S3.
S3 should be judged by watching it, not by marketing strategy or by who likes or dislikes it (unless it is clear that people who you can reasonably assume to have similar tastes as you all seem to dislike it, maybe).
As for why they would want to pull in (some) alienated parts of the fanbase: they want to get more viewers/paying customers. If they indeed made S3 quite dissimilar from earlier seasons (and also from Discovery and even SNW), they do need to get that point across to people who could well enjoy the new season but who otherwise would not even give it a chance.
The end of the show isn't its weakest point for me (thats the awful Stardust city I hated the episode, the only positive in it was how they handled the early death to really hit home the impact to 7), but its such a mix bag, and that really matters more for a finale. A lot of it, like most of the finales of Discovery is that the rush to end the story, when the rest of the season is much better paced.
One thing I do want to state (well I guess it's actually now 2). The copy and past fleet. It actually makes far more sense here, than what happened in Lower Decks. And people seemed to love the copy and paste fleet in Lower Decks. Which, while giving an uplifting moment to the show, literally makes no rational sense for in universe storytelling, anyone who watching should literally be taken out of the episode, as it makes no rational sense at all. While for Picard, they gave an in story reason. So only fans of previous Trek should be disappointed, because of expectations, not due to an in universe story aspect (of course the episode gave us as pointed out a few of those in the episode on other things...).
I agree that the Stardust episode was the weakest of the entire season, and I also disliked the charicature they made of the Romulans (especially with the warrior nuns and their protégé, running around as if he was part of Lord of the Rings).
However, my big beef with the copy/paste fleets is that it wasn't needed at all. Give Oh just one vessel (maybe after battle with the defences, space flower thingies...) that clearly outmatches La Sirena and let Riker come in on one vessel, that happens to outmatch hers. It doesn't need to be the entire "Combined Fleet" vs everything in the Pacific Fleet à la Midway. Since Oh is a clandestine operator, she wouldn't necessarily be able to call upon all Romulan forces and Riker likewise may have been able to just get one vessel at his disposal.
As for Lower Decks, it's a comedy that doesn't take itself seriously. The scene with all the Callies was poetic: the obsolete, second rank vessels that are in the process of being phased out beat the thing that is supposed to replace them, and that by working together. And that they are supposedly in the process of being recalled for decommissioning even gives them a (paper thin, OK) excuse to have them all in one place. But it's a comedy and it was a cathartic scene, so I don't mind.
Whereas in Picard S1, just one potent Romulan vessel and just one even more potent Starfleet battlecruiser (sorry - "explorer with some mild self-defense potential") would have largely sufficed to serve all the plot points needed. Still more than enough to overpower La Sirena and level the Android village.
