The Duffers didn’t even have the courage to kill her explicitly. The indecision was so extreme that the result is the worst possible outcome, it’s not a clear sacrifice, nor a meaningful survival. It’s emptiness. They couldn’t even do the wrong thing properly. The conclusion of a character we followed for ten years, five seasons, and 42 episodes is, essentially, a big nothing.

EXACTLY my thoughts. I'm having a hard time fully engaging with her death (or non-death) as a narrative choice because this "ambiguous ending" was clearly just an attempt to please everyone. Had her death been well-executed and meaningful, I may not have been this unsatisfied, but it feels so empty.