For everything you list with MS regarding making good moves this gen, there are caveats and in some cases done better by other platform holders. GamePass IMO still has not proven its worth; remember the service was pushed messaging-wise to have all MS 1P games Day 1...but the games have been very slow to come, especially of the AAA variety. Quite a few of which have come, have died off relatively quickly or didn't make a lot of a splash to begin with. They have several games revealed in 2020 and even 2019 that we still have no release dates for, but credible rumors of a few being in various states of dev hell/trouble. That doesn't inspire confidence.
GamePass's existence also seems to be the fuel for MS to make numerous mass-scale 3P publisher acquisitions, or at least that's their intent. The notion they need an ever-increasing amount of content to "fuel the beast that is GamePass" has always been false; you just need a decent amount of QUALITY content, high quality at that in ways that command presence. I personally don't have an issue with MS buying Zenimax, or even ABK, but I think if/when the ABK acquisition is approved, they need to chill on further acquisitions for a few years.
It's time they actually show they can do some amazing things with what they already own, instead of adding even more food on a plate they've barely started to eat, otherwise it will make them look gluttonous and greedy (something they're already contending with not just with many gamers but also regulators investigating the ABK deal). IMO, take a good 4-5 years to make your acquisitions put out some consistently great work and elevate them beyond what they would've been able to accomplish if they hadn't been acquired. Show us what you can do in terms of managing these teams, and then maybe if/when you want to go after another publisher in the future, you'll have a lot less resistance from gamers and maybe even regulators.
BC is a nice feature to have, but apparently MS either can't justify (through demand or licensing costs) the need to add more OG Xbox support through the BC program. IMO it would've been best to just include some legacy hardware in these systems so they could do some hardware-based BC, but I understand the costs in ensuring that. I think Sega was onto something when they did BC for Master System (in the MegaDrive) because the way they planned their architectures was to bring forward older designs into new ones building on top of it. That way you could have your hardware-based BC but also use that legacy hardware alongside new hardware for next-gen games of the time. That was the plan with Saturn to some extent, too, but obviously that fell apart for various reasons.
Messaging is a mixed bag. TBH both MS and Sony have had some mixed messaging this gen, but focusing just on Microsoft: this ongoing ABK acquisition is really bringing out the worst in them and some of the zealots in the fanbase IMHO. Leaked documents from the court cases are showing hypocrisy in MS's messaging to regulators vs. messaging towards fans on the benefits and intentions of the acquisition. Their public Twitter account has actively engaged in enabling console war toxicity against PlayStation with specific tweets (including one within the past week or so), placating to some of the worst people in that community when it comes to anti-PlayStation toxicity like Colteastwood and Destin.
It's also hypocritical; you had Xbox executives and ambassadors calling for unity and being nice to each other in the gaming space when certain gaming credentials of people in the Xbox Ambassador program were exposed & questioned, but I don't see Aaron Greenburg or Phil Spencer on Twitter calling for peace among fanboys anymore when it involves stuff against PlayStation. I understand why they aren't doing that (MS and Sony are probably not on the best of terms these days considering what's going on with the ABK stuff), but it doesn't make it any less hypocritical.