Great article! They could have solved the Sam Wilson development since he has been around since CA 2 especially if they knew they would pass the mantle to him, giving him more to do leadership wise. But they also treated Caps films more like mini Avenger films and packed way too many characters in Cap Civil War that most of Sam's interactions were comedic in service to Cap and Bucky.

I agree it's mostly the characters but I do wonder if Marvel slowed down during the pandemic and had a longer gap between phase 3 and 4, released Black Widow when things got back to normal then followed that with Hawkeye (closing those two's story) if that would have been better for introducing Yelena and Kate.