I’m with you on all the negatives of the episode but I do think its important to show the death scene of that certain character as it is important to the characterization of another character in The Renegade (order 66 arc) and I do like the Anakin and Tarkin scenes. I feel like its equally, if not more important than episodes like:

Assassin which only introduces Ahsoka to Ventress in a pretty bad episode since its from season 1.
Seven Warriors which only introduces Hondo and does basically nothing else except be a reference to a Kurosawa film that has been copied a million times. Also although Hondo appears in this episode for the first time his interactions with Obi and I believe Anakin imply they’ve known one another for a long time so his appearance in Pirates of the Outer Rim would be a suitable introduction anyway.
Attachments which is just a lesson for Ahsoka to let go of her attachment to Anakin in an otherwise mediocre story.

As far as what to cut from The Citadel, I sent you my rough edit of the episode that cuts about 15 minutes from what you ended up with. As you said there’s a lot of action that can be trimmed and there are a few scenes, especially with Sobek the lackluster villain that can be cut. Lots of things that I cut are just characters saying they’ll do something before they do it which is incredibly redundant, but maybe helpful to children who are the target audience of the show anyway.

Please don’t take any of the above criticism as anything negative, I love what you’ve done with the show as a whole and have been very inspired by the project.