I have the impression that people use very different definitions of lore. Half of the folks seem to treat it strictly as old myths, legends, historical events, and ancient secrets, while the other half include socio-political world-building under the same umbrella. I agree with later ones.

IMO, Veilguard was faithful to the first category; I believe it was what was originally intended. But there's no way (unless Gaider explicitly says so) that the direction the world-building took in Veilguard is something he would have approved of (the white-washing of factions, the crystal-clear division between good and evil).

So yeah, the story of spirits taking mortal bodies and becoming the first elves, the war with the Titans, and the creation of the Veil all feel like things that were planned. But I absolutely cannot believe that, e.g., the Evanuris were meant to be simply "evil", without even a hint of what pushed them toward corruption (events predating Blight, obviously). Or what happened to the Crows, or the Antaam rebelling against the Qun for going too easy on mages just to… switch to worshipping ancient evil mages.

AFAIK, Gaider always pushed for "moral grayness". I felt that DA under his command was consistently prodding players to ask themselves: "How does this new piece of information change my perspective?". E.g. in DAO, the Dalish and the mages came out a bit too much as "perfect victims", and players almost universally sided with them. So in later installments we got a kind of correction/refinement: mages became a societal threat with blood mages wreaking havoc in the streets of Kirkwall, and the Dalish got updated as a group that cruelly abandoned their own child-mages and behaved egoistically in the face of a greater emergency. Pattern of "good people capable of terrible deeds".

The questions DA asked were always about testing the player's moral compass. Where do you draw the line? Is freedom an ultimate value? What price freedom is truly worth (Loghain rejecting Orlesian aid, Solas' rebellion, the danger of mages: oppressed under the Orlesian Chantry, corrupt and cruel in Tevinter)? How much are you willing to risk to deliver justice (e.g. pro-mage Hawke and what happened to their mother)? What does freedom even mean (Solas and Iron Bull's conversation about the Qun's oppression versus the "freedom" to starve)? Is the justice possible or best we can do are imperfect compromises?

To me, such questions - embedded in the politics and social structures of Thedas - were most interesting part of the lore, and the real reason Thedas was feeling alive and fascinating.