and by extension massively compromised and lessened both Kylo’s threat and his depth of character due to all the possible branches of story between him and Snoke that much got killed off in the process.
I don’t see how that makes any sense. If you thought he was a bigger threat than the Emperor, and then Kylo killed him, how does that make Kylo less of a threat? It does the literal opposite of that.
This doesn’t make sense to me. A child can kill a professional soldier with a knife, if that soldier doesn’t pay attention. Does this make the child more of a threat than a professional soldier? Kylo doesn’t get to kill Snoke using his cunning or abilities. He’s able to do it, because Snoke acts like a fool, and starts ranting how he can’t beaten. The scene deflates Snoke. It doesn’t inflate Kylo. It’s obvious Kylo isn’t as powerful as Snoke, or Palpatine for that matter, and doesn’t seem to display the intelligence of a character like Palpatine either. So, I don’t see how Kylo became a bigger threat personally by killing Snoke, who only died, because he had his big head up his behind. If anything the FO has become less of threat, because it’s now run by someone less powerful, who’s mentally unstable and far less intelligent.
This is why this scene narratively doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s used for shock value, but ultimately weakens the bad guys at a stage when they should seem all the more terrifying (let’s not forget TLJ also turns Hux into a big joke). Such a scene would fit better in the third film of the trilogy, when the Kylo has regained Snoke’s trust, and completed his training, becoming more mature and powerful. Now Kylo takes over just after Rey handed him a humiliating defeat, deflating him in the eyes of the viewer.