I'm a member of the the Aqua fanclub(joined doing the japanese release) so no I don't hate Aqua,but I will admit that I agree with a lot of what you said. I find Aqua's personality and her story overall to be boring. I kind of thought that for her japanse self as well,but her voice actress there was so good at bringing emotion to Aqua that I ignored my gripes. I can't do that now.
Firstly Aqua has no character development in my opinion. I know some say it was subtle,but where they saw subtle I saw nonexistent. Aqua's personality is pretty static basically. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. The org, for example, are pretty much filled with static characters. Yet they are much loved in the fandom. That's because most of their personalities, static as they may be, were
engaging enough for their lack of character development to not be much of an issue. Would development be nice? Sure. It's always nice. However,if your personality, whether a villain or protagonist, is strong enough development is not necessarily needed.
Aqua on the other hand
needed character development because her personality as is was not engaging enough for her not to be boring. Then mix her stale personality with an overall emotionless voice actress, plus mehly executed story,and you have a very lacking character.
I also felt no emotional attachment to Aqua. Or Terra, Ven, and BBS, in general for the matter.The emotional scenes just weren't executed well. I liked her in the generic ' she's a good guy so of course I like her' way,but that's sadly the crux of it. Truthfully, and sadly, I only still call myself a fan because of superficial reasons. For example I still have a fondness for how well her japanese voice actress could bring emotion to her. I also like that's she's a badass.Plus I love her hair color and outfit. However, the things I wish I could like her for such as development,emotional investment, an entertaining personality, I can't because she has neither in my opinion.
I suppose if I
had to say I felt something ,even a little bit, for one of them it would be Ven. He had more emotional facial expressions,and a more emotional voice and personality. For example I felt for him a bit when he was begging MX to not make him fight in that flashback, and when he was deteriorating into light after his fight with Van and his heart floated away. As well as his small thank-you to little Sora as he went into him for the last time. Any feeling I had on those scenes was very small and fleeting,but it was something. As for Terra I felt a little bit of emotion about seeing him walking in the secret ending with Braig, and just so clueless to the evil that's going to befall him. For Aqua. Nothing. I can look at them, and the BBS story in general, and know from a
technical standpoint that what befell them was pretty bad,but as for actually
feeling emotion with that thought. No.
I know I've probably opened up a can of worms with this(puts up flame shield the size of a planet lol),but if I can't be brutally honest about who I call myself a fan to then I don't deserve to call myself one.