I think you guys are just trying to rationalize a lazy storytelling decision.
If they wanted to bring him back, maybe they could have set it up better, but it clearly was a decision they didn’t make until the last movie.
You guys talk about how it ties everything in, and good for the poetry and rhyming, I suppose. But I think bringing him back actually hurt the development of the new characters. It gave them less time and agency to come into their own. By the end of it, the new characters are still just overshadow by the legacy characters. I mean, good for you guys to see the silver lining, and maybe there could’ve been a good way to bring him back, but this wasn’t it imo.
I’m glad Palpatine wasn’t set up in TLJ. By setting him up in TLJ, it would’ve undermined the hope that the First Order will be defeated since it’s all for nothing since Palpatine’s just going to return and make things worse. He needed to come out of nowhere in TRoS.
Also, how does it hurt that development, exactly?