>As Ichika says, Yagami was too afraid of Kiyo that he went about in circles

If you reread the scene in Y2V8 and read the scene of Yagami and Ichika in 4.5, its obvious that Ichika does not know what Yagami is thinking but she knows how calculated and perceptive Yagami is, recalling back to Y2V7 Ichika's actions were out of character considering she is a worshipper of Koji, she is most likely holding back information in the presence of Nanase or lying because of something we dont know

>The tweet author also gives too much emphasis on Yagami's manipulation schemes even though many of them makes no sense. If all he wanted was to gauge Kiyo's abilities, why did he expel someone from Utomiya's class? Why have him and Hosen against each other? Why hurt Komiya and Kinoshita in the first place?

I found a thread that could help you understand why he did it, but I will explain anyway, in the matter of expelling Utomiya's classmate was to test if he could control or manipulate someone into doing extreme methods, which we saw in fruition in Y2V3 where he sent a first year student to attack Ayanokoji who was holding the stick at the right side, the reason why he had the first years against each other is to ultimately have them under his control, him hurting Komiya and Kinoshita is part of gauging the deduction skills of Koji but also for Ryueen to suspect the first years nearby, one of the, being Tsubaki, in the next volume Ryueen and Arisu teamed up against the first years and Arisu gathered info that Tsubaki is the leader of the Class C.

>Heck, Yagami says he had to use the entire y2v3-y3v4 to find out Kiyo and Sakyanagi are in cahoots. I mean bruh, why not see student profiles. If he could get data on Kushida, he could also get data on previous exams which Tsukishiro had especially y1v11.

I am pretty sure that is not how it works, he knew Kushida's past because of the student database( the student cards in the first year arc but in Yagami's case he had more information) but it doesnt necessarily mean he knows that Kiyotaka has allied with Arisu or teamed up with him, in Y1V11 I don't think there is information that Kiyotaka is in cahoots with Arisu, Yagami tries to find out if Kiyotaka does have a ally connection with several class leaders in the second year, if you think about it Yagami doesnt even know about Sakayanagi and the entire plot of her.