Just got this on Steam!

[JJ Strife]

Yep all three (plus Ardyn to an extent) were meant to set up Bahamut as a big bad and a Screw Destiny plot.

Yeah that's pretty much what Ep Ardyn did. Which I thought worked great as an explanation for Ardyn's character, but didn't really fit with the rest of the main story very well. It seemed to make Noctis' role in the whole story almost accidental. Like he was only the "chose one" because that's the time at which Ardyn woke up/escaped.

As I said earlier, I really didn't like the last chapters of the game and the ending, but I also played it on launch and haven't played it since. Most of the rest was pretty entertaining though. I've been toying with the idea of getting the full edition though it's also dumb that that should be necessary in the first place. You gave a rather glowing review, so maybe that'll nudge me to actually do it.

I still can't imagine comparing it to VI or XII.

If you only played it on launch, you absolutely need to replay it with all of the DLC as part of your playthrough. I really didn't like it on launch, would've said it was just very average. Would've given 7/10. But the DLC fixes nearly everything. Fixes the massive plotholes, fixes the extremely short length of the game, and fixes the terrible pacing in the second half.
After all the DLC, I'd say it's more of a 9/10.

You have to make sure you play all of the DLC chronologically within the game though, that really works so much better.