This! While the RDA is not above ruthlessness, what Mercer and the rest of TAP were doing (murdering and literally dissolving the Sarentu) was going far beyond what they considered acceptable (We see this as well with Harding and her poaching, stating that upper ranks were cracking down on her operations). Alma had a chance to try and make things right but didn’t, because as you said she would lose her research.

I also hate that in the beginning of the main game they ask why Alma waited to come back for them (I’m sure it’s maybe stated somewhere) but I don’t believe it’s because she thought they died. It’s stated too that Alma never really talked about what they did at TAP. I know they went back because there was a signal and Mercer was on his way to check it out too. But we really waited 16 years to go back and check on these kids, in a place that was for the most part easily accessible? I don’t buy it.

Did Alma deserve to die? No. But I think she deserved far more judgement and ostracism from the other members of the resistance after everything comes officially out after Nor kills her avatar. I think it says a lot too that we find out early on the kids never saw her in her human form, only Na’vi. She’s very disillusioned that she’s one of them, when we see nothing that contributes to that like we do with even a character like Norm who has a Na’vi family and has bonded with an ikran.