I just don’t understand why the dialogue needs to be gutted though, in my opinion it’s much better the way it is originally. I don’t think it works to splice the Crait line before “maybe it is”, it breaks the flow of the conversation, and I don’t get why you’d remove “Everyone’s so afraid. They’ve given up”. This doesn’t contradict Poe’s development from TLJ, and is integral to his arc: Poe still believes the Resistance is the spark, but he laments so many people haven’t joined the Resistance because they’re afraid/given up. When Zorii says “there’s more of us” she’s telling him there are more good people in the galaxy, good people who’d be willing to fight. This is something he still believes (which is why she tells him “I don’t believe you believe that”), he just has moments of doubt, such as this, the scene on Leia’s death bed, and the ‘lowest point’ of the battle on Exegol.
It’s not a conflict with his character arc - it’s a conflict with the mechanics of the story.
The main reason I went about altering the dialogue was because it contradicts the new through line that was added in Ascendant, of the galaxy rising up. Right in the new opening crawl - “Flames of rebellion burn across the galaxy”… it creates a conflict if we say that the galaxy is rebelling, and then Poe claims that “Maybe it is over. Everyone is so afraid. They’ve given up.”
So yeah, Poe’s hopelessness works in the theatrical version, where the galaxy has given up (until Lando gives everyone an off screen pep talk); but if we want to establish that the galaxy has been working on this since Crait, Poe claiming that the galaxy is “afraid” and “has given up” comes across as incongruous. The restructured dialogue effectively conveys the same ideas of Poe’s hopelessness as it did originally, just without that contradictory aspect.
Poe’s arc in this movie goes hand in hand with it’s main theme: he goes from believing the Resistance has to fight alone, to putting his faith in the people, The people who come together and (in this version) Rise in the name of Skywalker. He basically goes from only focusing on the spark, to actually letting it light the fire that brings the First Order down. Poe’s conversation with Zorii is a key moment for the story and his character arc, and is one of the few legit callbacks to TLJ. I don’t think it’s a disposable, meaningless moment… and I don’t think it should be tampered with.
The way I edited it - or at least, the way I envisioned it 😉 - it would only serve to enhance everything you’re saying about Poe and his journey. The difference is that rather than “nothing character #156, introduced two minutes earlier” Zorii telling Poe "Ehh…I’m sure there are other people somewhere! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ", it becomes an actual moment - a scene for Poe to see for himself (and for the audience to see) that the galaxy hasn’t given up on their cause. He helped inspire the galaxy by his actions on Crait, and now the galaxy is able to inspire him in return. It’s tangible, and concrete; it’s much, much more than Keri Russell saying “Cheer up there, bucko!” as her seventh line of dialogue.
We can add signs of rebellion on Kijimi without interfering with this, in fact it could heighten the fact Poe is so focused on the struggles of the Resistance he’s (partially) blind to signs of the external growing uprising.
That was my thought too, on why I thought the graffiti would still work - Poe just has his head down, so to speak, and doesn’t notice it.