I don’t think it diminishes the stakes in her confrontation with Palpatine, so much as it just doesn’t raise some already-low stakes. But I don’t think we need to be trying to increase them through this angle, I don’t think we’d be able to justify it with dialogue given the performances, and I think trying to enhance it by adding these new wrinkles is the wrong approach. No offence meant there of course - I just don’t think it’s the right angle.

I just think that the final confrontation works fine (and would require added clumsiness elsewhere to improve), and that the core concept of Rey being a Palp-manipulated birth is sufficiently elegant that it’ll give a huge amount of added value standing alone. In short, I think you already nailed this!

Anyway, I think I’ve made my argument as well as I can for my subjective preference, so I’ll respectfully step back now and stop repeating myself! Either way, I think we’re onto something very good here.