Star Wars has traditionally been very straightforward storytelling. Sure, "upending expectations" can be a good thing. But this isn't just that. Things in VII were built up and then literally ignored in VIII. No resolution, no follow-up at all. So maybe they'll be answered in IX. If they aren't, then the complaints were legit. If they are, then I'd still say that not even following up with anything even hinting at resolution in VIII is bad storytelling.
I wouldn't say that at all. Not everything
needs explanation or resolution. On the contrary, I think that trying to explain and resolve every little loose end is more lazy storytelling than the more "real world" approach of just letting things play out, and resolving the
major themes. And often, we don't know for sure what those are until the end. There
should be unexpected twists and turns along the way rather than everything being neat and tidy, because that's how life is. Things may be hinted at and dropped for any number of reasons. Maybe it is intentional misdirection. Maybe it is just a thread that, once it was started, they realized it didn't really pay off and they thought of something better. Heck, as good a job as the MCU did at paying off seemingly meaningless threads, they even had some of that as well (for example, the infinity gauntlet originally seen in Odin's vault, which they later had an issue with once they decided they were going the Infinity War route, so they had to retcon that a bit by having Hela call it a fake in Ragnarok). And sometimes, there IS a payoff, but it comes later rather than immediately. Again, none of those things are necessarily "bad writing" just because fans wanted or expected something they didn't get.
Or are you saying that just because you did like it that no one else's complaints are legit?
No, not at all. I think the above clarifies it. But in general, I think people just complain too much anyway. You don't like it? Cool. Don't like it then. That doesn't mean it sucks or that there is something wrong with the artist that created it. It just means you didn't like it. There doesn't have to be a scapegoat for that.