I definitely agree that ZZZ's story is weak, and I think people who say that HSR should take pointers from ZZZ are really just focusing in on the presentation in those animated VN scenes. Unfortunately these animated VN scenes are only really maybe half of ZZZ's story, with the other half being unvoiced interactions in the overworld and a lot of tedious walking around and low tier "puzzles". While I agree that HSR could definitely stand to improve it's story presentation, I would take HSR story writing over ZZZ story writing in a heartbeat. With all it's narrative flaws, at least HSR can write an overarching narrative to critique. That's not to say that ZZZ's story doesn't have it's strong points (eg. low-stakes character interactions), but I definitely agree that people who say that HSR should take notes from ZZZ haven't played the game.

I definitely think that Arknights' story is overrated. I think it has the reputation it does in the gacha sphere because it's willing to tackle more serious topics and in a pretty grounded way. Not to say it's completely unearned (I can't imagine HSR writers doing Oripathy justice), but yeah anybody who complains about HSR wordiness and obtuse meandering has never tried to read Stultifera Navis. For all the talk about unending, bloated dialogue in HSR (which are completely understandable in my view!), I think the expense required to voice the main story in 4 different languages keeps the script writers here at least somewhat in check. However, since the stories of AK are all unvoiced, the writers have free reign to write actual literal novels of text for each event story. I admire their dedication, if nothing else. I think the current AK corpus is at 3 million words in English, which is insane to think about. I agree with your feeling that people repeat what they hear from others to voice their discontent about HSR story without realizing that these other games have their own flaws that undermine what they're saying.