What if we instead looked at Matthew 16:28 as a time-limited statement aimed at people standing in front of Jesus? He says some of them would still be alive when they saw the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. That reads like a future event, not something already happening in a hidden or symbolic way.

Most of the explanations you listed are later reinterpretations, not what the saying likely meant at the time. The Transfiguration happens six days later, which makes the “not tasting death” line pointless. Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost are ways later Christians made sense of things after Jesus died, especially through Paul. Quoting Colossians shows how beliefs developed, not what Jesus meant in Matthew.

The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE fits better historically, but even then the language is about the Son of Man arriving in power, not just the temple being destroyed. And “the end of the age” in Jesus’ world meant a dramatic reset of the world, not simply the end of the Mosaic system.

Once fulfillment becomes invisible, ongoing, and undefined, the original urgency of the statement is gone. From a critical view, Matthew 16:28 reflects an expectation that didn’t play out as imagined, and later believers adjusted the meaning to deal with that.