I don’t think that’s a good thing, it means the writing is bad.
There's some inconsistencies with the writing for sure, but one side not ending up together does not equal bad writing. The story was always about TJ + YW. Jo and Ian were surface level.
Again, saying that a relationship is surface level, if the work is a love triangle, that means there’s a failure on the author’s part.
Compare this to say, Severance the TV series. It’s a fantastic show with brilliant writing that made viewers invested in every relationship, including both ships of its love triangle. It’s good because you understand where all the relationships are coming from.
If the only emotion Wet Sand can pull out of you is derision against your rival ship, calling it lame and surface level and the characters are just plot devices, then that’s a failure on the writer for being unable to make more interesting characters that create complexity for the relationships instead of being just NPC obstacles in the way of your OTP. This love triangle’s writing is just gangster yaoi Twilight with Jacob/Bella/Edward then.
all this whining won't change the fact that tjyw is endgame and your fav is a shallowly developed plot device