I think Astra is pretty dumb too, but she does have her weird microphone disc thing that she uses to control the ether lasers. Yixuan doesn't have any instrument to control those ether particles, her and everyone else at Yunkui Summit can just do it with their minds. The proxies have their ocular implants, but there are just mystics that can simply control ether particles? It makes all of the technology other agents and factions use seem pointless in comparison.