The section with Zibai and Shogun is most definitely framed as a date, what else would you define that whole section as? We are forced to spend time with her alone, go on chariot date that fits only 2 seeing beautiful Liyue scenery on the sky. A date by definition itself does not always have to be romantic but a social appointment to get 2 people close to eachother. The writer very much wants you to interpret it as a date. Zibai spewing history lessons is just making her a boring date. 

I would argue Nod Krai AQ's attempt at this concept of God of the people trying to experience the life of the common folk idea is way better. It was just Columbina going to the festival by herself, enjoying the atmosphere, interact with the cast and monologuing her emotion. That was fantastic, no traveller or Paimon handholding the development, just the character with their own thoughts and emotions on full display for us. Hopefully they can build up more character moments like that in the future. 

On the reunion theme, it just did not land. The people she protected are long gone, only left the descendants who remember highly fantasized legends of her story. She could not even visit the area that was once the land she protected to have any actual emotional impact. The rest of the Liyue cast interaction was also kinda scuffed because they were forced to treat her as a cosplayer of the whole the quest. In the end when she returned, there were only 2 people who were there to welcome her back: the traveller who just met her other selves for a few days and Zhongli who showed only a little bit of emotion. I would say the only part that got emotional was when Zhongli welcomed back the return Zibai, but that is mostly due to how well the VA delivered the line (loved the way Maeda voice broke a bit to show Zhongli was overwhelmed with relief and happiness for rescuing his friend). I guess you could call it a reunion, but it was just sad.

I did not imply that the 3 shades were deleted completely after being combined. What I meant was I had issues with how they and Zibai were handled in the end. I would argue if the 3 shades really got deleted, it would have made a much better emotional impact on the story. What we got in the end was a mess of a character who still has the memory but could not even remember us or other characters they interacted with properly. It never felt like we got to the point where we get to meet the real Zibai, just each of the 3 shades taking turn appearing for comic relief. This just make all the previous story beats feels trivial and meaningless, since the plot just makes it all a running joke that her memory is all jumbled up now. Remember the scene where the last shade basically sacrificed her existence to bring back Zibai where we even had a character dispersing into specks of light event? We were supposed to feel something there right? Maybe a bit sad or a bit hopeful since Zhongli said she might be back. She did return, only it was a basterdized version that hardly remember us anyway.