I see you responded to my post just as I was editing it for brevity. I will respond to the points you made prior to my edit of the post, because I did mean them when I typed them, I just felt they were unnecessary for getting my overall point across.
Point one: "shoddy writing" is something that can't be objectively qualified, and considering the number of people I know who see few to 0 inconsistencies with AA's writing, and see inconsistencies instead with how certain flags/options still trigger even after his Ascension, I don't think this particular forum gets to decide whether a writer should keep their job or not.
Point 2: it is heavily implied that a considerable number of Cazador's victims were innocent of any great and evil crime. Astarion himself was rewritten to have just been a magistrate who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pretending like those 7k+ people (whose souls will also be condemned to the nine hells) aren't collateral in a terrible ritual is just missing the entire point of the moral dilemma. If they were evil bastards who had it coming, it'd almost be a no brainer. Also, no, they won't go mindless and murderous. They might go mindless and murderous. Again, that is the ENTIRE point of the moral dilemma. It's a dilemma, because it isn't easy. If you want to kill them to (maybe) prevent future tragedies, you're supposed to appreciate and understand the weight of that decision, and if you unwillingly use their souls to turn Astarion into an evil vampire lord who will be in the same ballpark of evil as his former master, and his master before him, then you should absolutely understand the weight of that decision as well.
Point the 3rd: Rewrites happen, and anything present in EA that was removed for 1.0 is non-applicable to the canon of the game. That's how canon works. He was overtly evil in EA, and he was rewritten to be morally grey. A troll with a goofy demeanor masking his tragic backstory as a tool to be used by an abusive, monstrous vampire lord.
