Can’t blame them though, Oda unnecessarily prolonged it
These are all decisions he consciously made which not only blocked and delayed the good stuff that everyone had been waiting years for, but instead promoted and spotlighted irrelevant crap people couldn't wait to be done with. If he really did get told to axe it, it's completely deserved. Best case scenario is that it teaches him a lesson for the final arc. But for some reason I highly doubt that.