So...did some people forget that two friends of the straw hats had to get sacrificed for the escape from WCI? How is that not showing how threatening this thing was? People keep forgetting about that...
Pedro?
Hardly anyone actually cared for him. His death was utterly emotionless and meaningless to most readers.
I still think that Katakuri actually set Jinbei & Co. free (we saw how he asked Luffy to defeat BM in the end), but if we get another lackluster explanation aka "Hey guys, I just successfully escaped!" this makes WCI so much worse.
At this point I actually don't even care how Oda treats BM or Kaido. I just don't feel any sense of danger and that ladies and gentlemen is just "bad writing" in terms of developing the villains.
Let's take Togashi again (just one example). He knows how to build his villains and develop them. Introduced the chimera ants and showed them murdering innocent civilians, even kids. Depicted Pitou murdering Kite in cold blood right at the start. That's how you set the tone for an arc and its villains. Not to mention the utter brilliance of Meruem's character development afterwards.
We're standing here and nobody even takes the villains seriously. In a way Akainu is the most intimidating foe right now and even he doesn't ooze terror.