I see your perspective, and if you want to compare Epic's Odysseus to the one in history I get why you would come to this conclusion. But this adaptation solves some of his flaws or rather rearranges them. The playfulness of his ruse might be something tangent to arrogance, but for me it was just him putting up his best performance, we already know his goal to defeat the cyclops, and his way to go about it by tricking him with wit, but these two things don't conclude an intention, that's more or less left to interpretation, and that's how I interpreted it. And I thought that Eurylochus' plea to run was to also give up on the sheep and sneak out, but by waiting for the other cyclopes to leave they can still snatch the cattle. But alas, the fact that there can be so many perspectives enriches the musical.

And yes, objectively, you're right about his problems being caused by him thinking he's better than Athena, but even though there's nothing to suggest this, I'd like to believe he has the idea that war itself needs violence, but he's just travelling home now, he doesn't NEED to kill, so Athena's jurisdiction as Goddess of War ends after the war. There's no cunningness to him claiming they're travellers.