And if you keep on repeating that to yourself, you will continue to reinforce this belief. And, continue to spread it. You are mistaken in your interpretation.
I covered this part. Tabata changed the name because the character was already a bastardization of Nomura's vision. It was still Stella in name, but Luna in character. Tabata took the hit so people don't blame Nomura for failing to realize his vision prior to leaving the project.
I understand that if you're following this thing from the beginning, it totally looks like Tabata came in there to be the bad guy, but when you separate yourself from that and look back at the timeline, there can be no mistake on this. When the E3 trailer had come out, no one knew to think about that character as being anything but Stella. Even Nomura himself in interviews referred to her as Stella, but she was clearly already different. You can't pin that all on Tabata. It was under Nomura's watch. Tabata did the right thing and changed the name and a few details to separate her from the character Nomura put into all of your heads.
It was exactly that. And he's stated as such multiple times. And yes, it has ABSOLUTELY, spectacularly, backfired, lol.
Not sure how referencing words Tabata himself said is "reinforcing some belief".
Tabata himself also said the story and the game drastically changed under him, but I guess the word straight from the new director's mouth isn't sufficient for some reason. Clearly Tabata is just so interested in preserving Nomura's reputation that he'd throw himself and the game he's developing and trying to sell under the bus for Nomura's sake. Anyone who doesn't think gigantic changes and reworks happened under Tabata are kidding themselves.
Right and even though he was slow to admit these things he did actually do it. To discount his words as nothing seems silly for someone who's keen on defending every aspect of the game.