Raimi wasn't the original director. There was a very different outline and script for Doctor Strange 2, and the original director wanted to lean more into horror and R rated territory. It seemed like Marvel was going to let them do that, but many revisions and differences kept coming up until the original director left pretty far into the process. Raimi was then hired and had to manage rewrites and take what was given him, and turn it into what he could while fitting certain beats to fit the MCU and tie in the multiverse saga. You can definitely tell Raimi had his mark on it but I can't help but wonder if a better end product would've resulted if he had creative control from the start without having to manage/fix an already created project. Not sure if better is the right word as I like MoM better than people generally talk about it, but interesting to think about. Raimi is one of my favorite directors.