While I agree with most of your points here, implying that Midsommar was somehow trying to pull a plot twist seems rather off base. I don't think Aster was under any delusion that he was crafting some "twist" ending as much as he was laying out a "slow burn". We knew from the marketing, story setting, and initial premise that the movie was leading us into a cult... The point wasn't to "twist" the plot but to explore the journey to where we knew we were going.