Why is he surprised by this? One is the Cute Mascot type the other the brash girl that doesn't let her true emotions show. Two very common and popular archetypes. Raven from Teen Titans and then Pikachu for example

This ing of the baton stuff rarely works especially when done in this manner. Counter to this you really don't see people complaing about Laura (X-23) huh?...difference being Laura is well written, makes sense and isn't forced by the film to be your new favorite Super Hero.

The way I always saw it, was that it was going to spiral out of control after Endgame.

That film just hastily retired so many characters for seemingly no reason. Then after Marvel heads started to make the same mistakes as the DCU which was churning out new releases and just throwing out characters just get to the crossover event.

Ultimately making it a mess and pretty much falling into the same pit that makes people not want to follow comic books.