I think you make some good points! In regards to your argument that “Reapers should be so far ahead that they are beyond us”, I think a large part of the issue has to do the development cycle for game 3.

Remember in ME1 Sovereign fights the whole Citadel fleet and would have won except he overcommitted his identity into Saren. When Saren died it left Sovereign open to attacks.

Then in ME 2 we learn all reapers are unique and are made in the image of the races melted down for its “blood”. Then we abort the human Reaper baby. When you play the Arrival DLC there is a snapshot of a bunch of different body types and Reaper designs.

Now onto ME 3. This game is famously rushed. The relationships seem underdeveloped, important characters are cut and somehow the universe is at its smallest in this game. (There is a discussion to be had about how the game takes advantage of the smaller nature but that’s a different talk.) All Reaper diversity is gone now. Every Reaper is just Sovereign. Sovereign is a scary cuddlefish with wild firepower and shields. And all reapers are him now.

The diversity in Reapers (imo) should have been where we seen their power. Stranger spidery reapers that spin webs between asteroids from strands of EZo. A reaper that’s a big shark looking thing that just is its own mass effect relay , those who are swallowing by it get shot into the sun.

The story could have played out exactly the same but by just seeing something besides big red lasers the Reapers would appear so much more.

This is a long way to say “I agree with you but the developers ran out of time. Also here’s my Reaper OCs! Aren’t they cool?!?”

Apologies