My thinking on the RogueLeader Dagger plan was that it would sort of be like National Treasure. You know how they found the cypher on the Declaration of Independence, and that cypher told them what to do in order to read the map that was also on the Declaration? But then they lose the Declaration and have to get it back before they can put the pieces together? Kind of like that here. The visible inscription would say “You must [do this] in order to see the Wayfinder’s location,” so then they have to get the Dagger back and do the thing in order to make it work properly.
Now, I’m not saying that National Treasure is the greatest, smartest movie ever made; but I do think that that’s a hell of a lot less stupid and contrived that an Ancient Sith Dagger pointing to this thingy that only happened 30 years ago. (Or worse, that f*cking Ochi carved the location into the Dagger for some stupid-ass reason.)
What I’m thinking is: slow down the shot of Rey approaching the Dagger in Kylo’s quarters - less a hasty walk and more of a solemn approach. When she picks it up, cut to the shot of the Wayfinder in Palp’s closet, flash to a shot of the throne room. Cut back to Rey, looking at the Dagger, as the camera zooms in. Back to vision, see the wreckage of the Death Star II, flash to the Death Star II, maybe as it appeared in ROTJ, cut back to Rey, still zooming in. Show a flash of Exegol, and then flash-forward to Palpatine, resurrected, sucking the lifeforce out of Rey and Kylo and cackling maniacally. Cut back to Rey - the camera has stopped zooming, but it’s a closeup of her face (rather than the medium shot in the theatrical - we can crop in on the 4K source) and have her say “No…” to actually seeing Palpatine resurrected. And, in this final shot of Rey, her eyes will have gone Dark Side yellow. Cut to Rey’s back. Kylo: “Rey…” Rey whips around, distraught, but her eyes back to normal.
I feel like the yellow eyes would help to convey that this time, she’s gone into the Dark Side, and that’s why the Dagger is working now. Cutting back and forth between Death Star stuff and Rey would help focus the scene on Rey, and would help to match the hyper-intensive way J.J. cuts his vision sequences.
Those are just some ideas I’ve been kicking around in my head over the past week or so. Anyone have any thoughts?
EDIT: I also think this makes Kylo knowing about Endor make a lot more sense. It’s much more believable that he was willing to tap into the Dark Side and saw the vision himself, rather than him knowing how to read Ancient Sith or whatever - a language that had been outlawed in the Republic for god-knows how many generations, and a language for which no translations currently exist.