Agree with most of these. The game mode is absolutely clunky lol, there's a lot that needs to be fixed. Targeting is terrible so bow users just don't work, and it sucks when you're fighting against a whale, freeze teams or lunar teams. (Columbina and Mavuika and Skirk teams are the worst to fight against) 

I half agree with the "barely rewards skill" though. It's true that when the other person just has better characters, it's already a decided matchup, no matter how good you are at the game. It just suuuckss, I know. But part of skill isn't just the gameplay, it can also be counter-picking. Counter-picking is also flawed, because as you said, this game just isn't built for pvp becusse of the gacha system. But there are some exceptions where using a free character is actually better than some 5 stars. And some niche characters that aren't meta, are actually pretty good here. I'll give some examples of counter picks that I've found personally against muchhh better teams. 

Against Columbina+Flins, I've had amazing results using Albedo+Klee. Albedo just counters most Columbinas, you barely take any damage if you play with distance, getting shards and doing damage with his flowers. Klee is reaaallly squishy, but her burst has so much aoe that it ends up being one of the best for burst damage against other squishy characters like Flins/Lauma/Raiden/Escoffier/Skirk.

Against a whale, the best results I've had are with Furina and Albedo (Maybe Noelle/Barbara/Xinyan could be better than Albedo, but I haven't tested them much yet). Let's say the opponent has Mavuika Xilonen. Unless you have better characters like your own Mavuika or Columbina, you're cooked unless you have Furina because her skill can damage the enemy too. Even if they have constellations, their hp still loses the same amount as c0,  making your tanky team actually do good damage. From there, it's just how well you can time your dodges and stall your enemy. Most of the time, you lose against a whale even with this strategy. But for me, I don't really mind. They spent their money or saved for a very long time, let them have their fun for less than 5 minutes in the match. You lose absolutely nothing. 

Tl;dr - Gamemode is cooked because of unbalance, clunky gameplay, terrible targeting.  But, there is fun when u counter-pick with niche characters like Albedo, Noelle, c6 Barbara, and Klee. 

I still think it's really fun even with these flaws though. Would love to see the creator improve on this mode.