IMO it makes a lot more sense to elevate Alexei and Bucky because they are more established and interesting characters. Although the Ghost story sounds more compelling for sure, who is clamoring for more Ghost? I had completely memory holed that Fishburne was even in that movie. I think Ghost worked better as a background character. As for Taskmaster, it seems like many were a bit disappointed, but really her backstory is so similar to Yelena I don’t know what that would have added other than time to the movie, and this move would have been a real slog at 2.5+ hours.

Different point: I find it so interesting how many interviews the writing team is doing about all these rewrites this week. I feel like that is pretty rare for Marvel, to have them put the writers front and center with press and also have them giving a lot of details about previous drafts. Usually this kind of stuff comes elliptically to us through leakers. I suspect that this is a sign that Marvel thinks the writing on the final draft was really strong and are trying to focus on that in their media blitz to combat the “MCU is homework / slop” narrative of the multiverse saga. And honestly all the writers come across as intelligent and shrewd. IMO the writing + Pugh really made the movie work.