Well, fair enough on the first two points, absolutely fine takes to have, just not ones that really need any further discussion, so I’ll just skip to 3, and keep focused on what the message of NGE is, contained within the media itself (so no, I’ll try not to reference the Japanese only PS2 game(‘s bonus content, lol) that sometimes gets brought up) - have you read my other comments to other users in this thread? I think they have some useful context for what my thoughts on the “message” of the series could be. But to boil it down, I think both the God-Tier (Adam and Lilith, first ancestral race, spears, eggs, etc) plot and the Civilization-Tier (Seele, Nerv, Instrumentality, Tokoyo3, etc) plot shouldn’t be regarded as the core of the message, but rather as symbolic elaborations on the core message (which I think is Shinji’s personal journey, which isn’t just about the external, “larger” plot lines alone, but also clearly deeply related to his “internal drama” of fear of rejection, and tendency to withdraw or run from situations that present even the possibility of rejection or disappointment).

So that’s just a lot of words to say that, while you can totally be annoyed that the show’s plot “went haywire at the end” or “conflicts/plot elements were left without perfect knowledge on their origin and outcome being given”, those are both, effectively, “missing the point” of the show. The Evas, the Angels, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Seele, all the various sideplots (MAGI and Ritsuko, Misato and Kaji, the school kids, etc) serve their purpose of facilitating and birthing the real story, the real message, which is effectively about Shinji’s (and thus every member of the audience’s) responsibility to not run away from the gift of life, but to embrace it entirely, aware that the lows are what make the highs.

IMO anyway! I’d be interested in your further thoughts!

Edit: one further thought, we could have had a show that was exclusively about the Adam and Lilith plot line(fruit of life descendants vs fruit of knowledge descents fighting over a planet they both landed on) - that would be cool in its own right, if a little lacking in meaning. We could also have had a show entirely about the human-scale machinations, of Seele, Nerv, Gehrin, Marduk, and other groups, seeking to bring about Instrumentality in different ways for different end goals - that would have also been cool in its own right. And finally we could have had a show about the challenges of one boy trying to find realization in a world that sometimes doesn’t care about his struggles. What we actually got was 95% of each of these shows, all in one! That’s part of why, for me atleast, I can rave about the show, compared with the vast sea of “meh” out there before and since.