I agree with all of that, which is why I liked him being killed off to set up Kylo as the big bad. I think that’s the strongest take with the character. Kylo is too manipulative on his own for a non-Force User to have manipulated and controlled him for so long, though I find such a villain interesting.
I just don’t see Snoke’s lack of backstory or the colour of his robes as the issue. He was a carbon copy of the emperor, so we can’t pretend that giving him the same lack of backstory hurts the narrative other than being derivative… but that’s a MUCH larger issue with Abrams’ films, how derivative they are to the original trilogy.