I'm not saying that the outcome is good (though I do prefer the Emperor to Daisy overall) just that I think Larian's choice here is an entirely reasonable and justifiable one. I think that being a hack implies a sort of creative insincerity, or a lack of effort, and whatever else I would say about this game, a lack of effort is not one of its faults. They had a vision for this game, a vision that clearly was constantly in flux and did not really get a direction until too late. But I can't be convinced that the people involved all put in the work to make this game happen.

Funnily enough, speaking just for myself, with the exception of some things like Shadowheart (I didn't play much EA until after that change so I don't know what she was really like before) the stuff they changed for release was also stuff I personally felt ught to have changed. I thought that Wyll's story pacing was off, that Daisy wasn't working for what they seemed to want her to be, etc. So Larian seemed to pick up on the fact those things were flawed, they just had wildly different ideas on what qualified as fixes.