Definitely. Something I realized is that the whole thing is, if not in vain, definitely of questionable value. Lonni risks his life and his family, and Luthen died after making himself a pariah chasing his white whale, for nothing that was actionable. It’s context, it’s exciting to finally know Palpatine’s biggest (third-biggest) secret, but what the hell are they supposed to do about it? It’s a big gun. The lead scientist’s name is Erso. So? Thus? And?
Meanwhile, Galen Erso himself serves the Death Star up to the rebels on a platter, using nothing but the kind of personal bonds of trust and affection Luthen considered purely transactional. He was able to turn Bodhi (using the same arguments Cassian used on the TIE tech), he had a personal connection with Saw. If it wasn’t for Saw’s paranoia, that might’ve been it. And even with it, the galaxy was saved by one of Cassian’s personal connections (though he ended up more toward the Luthen side in exploiting it).
Indeed, I wonder if without Kleya priming the pump, Draven wouldn’t have been more receptive to Galen’s defection, rather than taking it as an opportunity to do a pointlessly late assassination.
Cassian did thread the needle between Luthen and Kleya’s burn it all down, who cares what else happens anarchism and Mon and Bail’s legitimate concern that they’d still need to have a functioning galaxy for people to live in even after Palpatine was gone. He was vindicated in saying that Luthen lost perspective and should’ve pulled up stakes, but was also willing to be hard, but not mindlessly hard, as when he decided Galen was legit and opted not to kill him (personally).
I’m sure there are countless Imperial slave labor prison factories building all sorts of things, including assembling widgets that only exist for the next floor to receive and disassemble before sending the parts back to the first floor, but I theorize that the Empire was already building a second Death Star before the first was destroyed, and Dedra was building super laser sprockets or suchlike.
