- strong female leads are popular
- "defying expectations" is popular
- Marvel style humor is popular
And when you put those things together without caring about making a good movie, you will do things like destroying Luke Skywalker, or redefining the Mary Sue trope. These things didn't happen because they wanted them to happen, they happened because they didn't care enough to not make them happen.
So, regardless of market research or whatever, the end result was not good.
Do you believe I'm trying to say anything different? You're arguing against something that is not my point.
Just stop for one second and consider this - is there literally no way to increase the quality of the movies without changing the "ideological messaging"? I think there are tons of ways, e.g. by removing the incredibly annoying slapstick humor overpresent in Episode 8. So why didn't they try to make it better? If they want to push ideological messaging, why not at least put effort into the movies, so your messaging is effective?
I guess they need to do a better job with their market research. Because destroying Luke Skywalker and redefining the Mary Sue trope doesn't seem like what the public wanted.