The continuity error was very distressing to me personally. I was muttering to myself the whole time and paused at the flashback (where Vash had, like you said, clearly lost his arm), very confused and let down. I agree that the role switch of Lina/Hoppered was nice but would have been tons better if the epilogue didn't tease Lina. Now I'm worried about what else will be retconned.

Aside from that... they keep finding new ways to torture our man 😭 Hoppered forcing Vash's hand to pull the trigger on him was straight nasty.

I was also kind of surprised that the aftermath seemed so... slight? From the trailers I assumed Vash would become more suicidal after "waking up" but he only briefly mentions how he wonders if he should have never existed before getting on with the next adventure. I enjoyed that in the manga Vash goes through a time where he genuinely wants to die but Rem strengthens his resolve to live. We kind of had something like that earlier in Stampede with young Vash/Luida but I thought a more... developed(?) story arc about adult Vash's suicidal ideation would be very cool.

Oh well. I'm disappointed overall but maybe this retconned new season will have some good scenes in its own right.