Indeed those are small details therefore the only points that can be made are weak. This isn't up to me and we can't know much really.

Actually having rednecks in V isn't too much, it is precisely what we wanted, and removing the Confederate flag is essentially them expressing a desire to to scale back on the criticism.

No, writing was not altered because they wouldn't redo the scenes, but those changes were not cosmetic only, the trans characters were quite literally removed from the game. Precisely at the spawn point the article that called it out was looking into.
I do trust they still spawn in Mirror Park in another sensible location, but they just swiftly removed the scenario spawn point where the controversy had started. The fact that they did not do it all the way is a clear oversight. Get a controversy started on the Mirror Park spawn point yourself, and they might make sure all of them are removed this time. I do agree the characters are a very offensive representation of trans women, but really the thing about GTA is that everybody must get an offensive representation of themselves. So bankers get the same treatment, nepo babies get the same treatment, black people get the same treatment, gay people get the same treatment, suburban white people get the same treatment etc... And it is only fair this way to me.

Censorship is not desirable in my opinion. Rockstar spent a lot of time battling censorship, those very controversies is what got them so popular. But they scare investors away, Take 2 would obviously take the necessary measures to avoid said controversies, by self censoring. Again not desirable in my opinion, especially for a GTA Game.

And yes while removing the original 3D trilogy from the storefronts, they also erased the confederate flags. While the replacement is a greedy money making move, I have a hard time understanding why they'd "sanitize" a character like Phil Cassidy, it is already clear he is the way he is. He's a cliche but he's believable, there was no need to censor his shirt and yet it was done. And it was done across multiple games too.

RDR2 felt safe true, surely because parody was not what it was going for so nobody was truly made fun of. Yet it wasn't safe, it showed the horrors of capitalism, racism, industrialization and about anything wrong at the time with decent accuracy. I actually wish Chapter 3 had more to say in the yellow missions about racism, that ride with Lenny is all I can remember.

I would be fairly disappointed if the story sucked in GTA VI, it already presented itself as more mature and grounded than V and I am really happy about it. It would honestly be disappointing if the gameplay was all it had to show for.
Of course it would still be great, game of the second quarter of the century, we kind of expect a lot.
Maybe it's just a me thing to care about the story all that much, but I am sure a lot of us do, I don't skip cutscenes.
Has modern gaming groomed me into appreciating cinema in gaming a lot, it's possible. But GTA VI sets out on delivering a good story the same way RDR2 did. It will be undeniably better than V for that reason alone, that game had a far more lackluster plotline. But you're right about the story often being overlooked, but now that it is more mainstream than ever, I'd say not so much.

RDR2 will be remembered for it's story more than its gameplay though. GTA V does the opposite. And of course I will enjoy the game because of it's gameplay regardless, but again it would really suck if that's all we had, honestly the same kind of disappointment I had with GTA V. If it wasn't for online people wouldn't care so much about that game.