>My hunch is HBO pushed the diversity changes and strategically chose a woman of color as the face of the project (instead of the white male creator) so that they could be shielded from any critiques.

Yeah... *glances at RT/IMDB/Metacritic score* that isn't working out real well for them, just like it hasn't for everything else lately from RoP to Witcher Blood Origin to Willow. Maybe it's time to rethink that strategy.

And to answer your question, 1) people really don't like Mindy, and 2) that Velma comes across as a shameless self insert for Mindy makes it easy to ignore the valid points you made regarding who is to blame for the low quality of the show itself.