You said it perfectly and honestly.. I cant defend Oda for doing something like that. You cant go from going toe to toe with Kaido in hybrid form for a while and then struggle at end game. If she does struggle end game, it would have to be thats shes cuffed up with sea stone, or trapped in water or her club is taken away. Oda is trapping himself to a corner.
I think ppl should lower their expectations instead of "yamato fighting kaido equally" jumps that most people are performing.
He is her father after all and he seems rather chill about it and they seem to be more chatting than having a fight to the death. After all the purpose of yamato vs kaido is to probably start a flashback instead of making yamato perform better than LinLin...
People simply expect Kaido to trash anyone below him and cant wrap their heads around it when it doesnt happen... It happened to Luffy so it has to happen to everyone else, right? No...
Yamato's proper placement will be shown in the future against someone else when she isnt playing a role of a plot device.