I will always support thoughtfulness in terms of the storytelling of Star Wars and its meaning, I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. But everything has their own wavelength, and so naturally there are things that would feel out of place from that wavelength. I just think what you’re suggesting is something more in the vein of Trek, where it less about grandiose myth and fairy tale and more about nitty gritty politics and and the nature of justice and such. SW has never really been about ‘justice’ in that way. Yes, the Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice, but their ethos are compassion and benevolence. Understanding and forgiveness. Retribution, revenge, punishment, these things aren’t supposed to be part of the Jedi philosophy, and, by extension, the philosophy of the series itself.
For me, Star Wars being “about” redemption is more just that redemption fits in cleanly with all the other things it’s “about.” You can’t just ignore that aspect, because they’re all connected, like a house of cards - pull one out and the whole thing tumbles (and I would argue the whole thing did tumble in TROS, but because of other areas). For me, looking at whether the good guys or the bad guys are the main characters is the wrong way of looking at it. Hero or villain is the wrong way of looking at it. Kylo Ren was designed to toe the line of that easy classification. Ever since TESB, the idea that the potential for the dark side exists within all people who use the force became a huge point of the story of the series. From then on, it wasn’t as easy as Luke being the hero who would defeat the evil and win. That evil power, that was something he had to face within himself - that was something he could become. The fight against evil is not an ‘us vs. them’ thing, it’s a universal struggle that we all must face within ourselves - right vs. wrong, selflessness vs. selfishness, etc. That’s what the dark side is, not some other, not some one dimensional space Nazi that we can so easily put into a box. This is the brilliance of TLJ, for instance. We assume things about Kylo because he’s the villain, and Luke because he’s the hero - but the truth is that it was Luke who succumbed to the dark side which was the thing that pushed Ben over the edge.
Kylo Ren is a perfect continuation of that central conflict, and that central story - not redemption, but that idea of freedom of choice, and choosing to do the right thing. To cast the character aside as just ‘bad guy’ or ‘villain,’ whose story must be defined in those terms only, is to miss the point completely.