TBH All You Finale Haters Need to STFU

I didn't even like the finale that much. I was comparatively bored throughout most of it when considering other finales and premieres. But so far, all of the reasons I've seen about why this finale was bad is utterly imbecilic.

Of course, I haven't read much of them, but of what I've seen...

Point 1: Starlight's motivations were bullshit.
How so? She lost her only friend when he got his cutie mark, so she ended up blaming cutie marks, deciding they were detrimental to society, and forcing ponies to lose them whether they wanted to or not. So, a cutie mark making her lose her best friend is not a good enough motivation for a villain to hate cutie marks?
But, apparently, having ponies sleep during nighttime and play during daytime is a perfectly understandable motivation for trying to outright kill your sister, take a country by force, rewrite the laws of nature, and "usher in an era of evil"?
And Dr. Wolf just pointed out in a recent video how the show may have literally meant for Starlight's motivations to be a parallel to Luna's, with the day and night motif of Sunburst and Starlight. So, if this is true, then I'll sit here laughing at everyone who says this 'wasn't enough motivation for what she did'.

Point 2: It makes no sense that Starlight was able to beat Twilight, an alicorn, in a duel.
This is the most logical point I've seen of all the ones commonly discussed on the problems of this finale, so I won't be so passive-aggressive in my explanation.
At first, it makes sense to ask. Starlight vs. Twilight. Unicorn vs. Alicorn. Not to mention the unicorn is constantly levitating herself while the Alicorn has separate flight magic, so how are they evenly matched in their battle?
But here's where I reference the season premiere, when Starlight takes Twilight's magic, as well as the season 4 finale's fight with Tirek; Twilight has no god damn idea how to fight. She is being less efficient with her use of magic in the battle. We see her teleport from Starlight's attacks once, so I would consider teleportation usage to equal out with Starlight's constant levitation. Remember that in the show pilot, Twilight is shown to levitate Spike around with ease. However, at this point, it seems teleportation magic is not something Twilight is good at. She gets a headache from teleporting the distance of a 5 second run. The show has never stated that self-levitation is any harder than levitating any other pony, so I would wager that Starlight's levitation doesn't use a lot of magic, just skill, while Twilight's teleportation is a huge waste of magic.
The general point; Twilight's wasting magic. Her first attack; she sends a barrage of lasers down at Starlight after flying in a loop. WHY???????? Only two of those lasers actually hit Starlight's shield, and she didn't even move from where she was! And that loop was probably a huge waste of energy, and perfectly telegraphs to Starlight that she's about to attack. This can be seen in her fight with Tirek as well, where she puts a huge shitload of magic into her first energy beam, but Tirek is shown to put up a shield. You could argue that Twilight couldn't actually see Tirek from all her magic, but fact is, she expected that attack to hurt him, and it was clear she wasn't doing anything with it. SO WHY DID SHE KEEP SHOOTING AFTER THE SHIELD WAS UP? During the final part, she decides to shoot every pillar of rock that sprouts from Tirek slamming the ground instead of... flying higher to avoid them?

Point 3: Starlight's sudden redemption is sudden.
We've had more sudden redemptions with actual villainous characters, and Starlight isn't villainous. She isn't evil, and that's what people are forgetting. She's the antagonist of the premieres and finales, and that's what's blinding people. Even before her 'redemption', she was no less villainous than Trixie or Gilda. In fact, she's a literal mirror to Trixie in the finale. She returns for revenge on Twilight Sparkle because she humiliated them and took away their livelihoods, forcing them into dislikable situations (Working on a rock farm and hiding in caves). Hell, her redemption took longer than Discord and Luna combined.