Misguided? Sure. Dumb? Yeah. Unfortunate connotations? Totally
Made with the intention of ruining the character? No lol. Its easy to understand why they did it. It's just dumb. Again, its all symptoms of the lack of a true creative understanding coming from the entire staff and production. Real lesson is that a proper sequel could not be made in 2012. Studio was compromised, and in the position where they feel they need to pander to a certain audience to succeed while not realizing that that audience is not who the original appealed to, different landscape. They shouldn't have tried and should have instead encouraged Kyoda to just do something else if they really wanted him to direct something.
Though If anyone had any idea what they were doing in the show, it was Yoshida, he felt he didn't need to involve himself to the extent of the original, but he sure as fuck made sure anytime Eureka was on screen, he was somehow involved.