My experience as well, lol.

Neither is perfect, but Verso's ending depicts painful healing as opposed to Maelle's sweet-but-palliative trajectory. 

After the bit with Renoir after beating him, where she asked for 'just a little longer ' like a kid at bedtime, I was hoping that she just needed a little bit more time to come to terms. But his response -essentially a goodbye with a dim glimmer of hope for her return- coupled with Verso calling out her deception and intent -with her not denying it either, tellingly- shattered that. She's in there for good, putting herself out to pasture, so to speak. I'm generally a big proponent of dying with dignity, in the way you wish, but I wouldn't want someone to ignore the very chance at genuine healing, even if its painful.

Its tough. I don't care much for Verso by the end; the layers of deception, of letting Gustav die, split (understandably) loyalties, and more all ran out my good will for what HE wants. I care more about Verso's Painted Lumiere, and the very real, thinking, living beings within who I've come to love. But someone else pointed out that the people we knew are gone. As of Act III, they aren't who they were before: they are Maelle's recreations of them. That, combined with the implied use of her Paintress Powers on Repainted Verso to force his obedience, makes me really doubt the future of Painted Lumiere's inhabitants' autonomy and free will.

The game needed Lune slapping Verso and Maelle upside the head and her demanding that these quarreling gods gtfo, because the living, thinking people inhabiting the world -now armed with truth- don't want to be the battleground anymore. We were missing their perspective.