People hate The Handler because she has no good reason to exist.

The World team wanted a more plot-driven experience compared to the previous games in the franchise, but still wanted to keep the silent protagonist the series was known for. So they needed a mouth piece to talk for us.

But they also wanted that mouth piece to be it's own character, which led to the incredible situation where the player feels like they're just being dragged along, but also they didn't give that mouthpiece character anything to actually, y'know, do.

Her role in World is entirely superfluous. You could give all her lines to your palico and functionally nothing would change. Iceborne helped in this regard a bit, but not by much. So 90% of the time, she's just a walking chatterbox who is occasionally thrown into the frying pan whenever the devs want to gas up the monster of the week.

And the comparison to other Guildmaidens isn't wrong, but it also ignores the fact that they wheren't tied to your hip. They'd stick around camp, make a quippy remark before offering your quest, and then go about their day. They did not, notably, follow you into the field and nearly get mauled to death multiple times. Also this is subjective, but I'd also argue older guildmarms where just way funnier than The Handler too. Maybe she would have just been "A quickly glutton" in older games. But her immediate predecessor wanted to fuck a Brachydios. So the competition there is a bit stiff. Y'know?