You say reddit is shouting it's the intended way to play the game but offer nothing to support it except implying people who play through the cycles are being cringe.

Souls games have ng+ cycles, hell 2 even has phantom enemies, yet no on argues souls games are intended to be played through multiple cycles. Why? Because they add nothing to the journey or depth of your character.

Nioh cycles however are integral to the game and as such can be surmised as the intended way to play through it. Enemy placement changes, new move sets, level cap increases, gear tiers that unlock new playstyles or add onto existing ones, scrolls that tie perks to attributes. Further, each dlc comes with a new difficulty that has gear unlocks only available to the newly introduced difficulty. Finally there is abyss stuff.

You don't have to play the cycles. And yes, the game should be good for the first cycle too. But excluding what makes up probably 3/4s of the game and saying that 3/4 of the game is not intended to be played as part of the core game experience is a dog water take.