[SPOILERS] Why was the Night King's arc so unstatisfying?

[Ras1983]

In the interests of understanding good and bad storytelling, I'd like to ask why you were dissatisfied with the way the Night King's arc ended?

So, what exactly was it that disappointed you?

I've thought about it for the last couple of days and I've concluded that the main characters involved were short-changed, which created huge disappointment for me. It's like Bran thinking Howland Reed and Ned had defeated Arthur Dayne fairly only to find out that Howland Reed stabbed Arthur in the back. Talk about an anti-climax! I saw a post in a thread joking that this is where the characters got the idea for Arya to ambush the Night King lol.

Based on that, I felt the writers handled the following poorly and that led to a lot of missed opportunities:

• Arya's development was short-changed because her killer sword-fighting skills were not used against the Night King. I just rewatched her sparring session with Brienne and the swordsmanship was great to watch. It would have been far more satisfying if Arya had had a duel with the Night King after she had successfully snuck up on him. This would have let us enjoy seeing her training in both stealth and combat coming to fruition.
• The Night King didn't get to display his fighting skills as he was effectively stabbed in the back and was defeated far too quickly. For someone who had been preparing for 8,000 years and had an army of undead (including a dragon!) at his disposal, I had really expected him to inflict heavier losses and to take more of Westeros before being defeated. And his stated purpose of wanting to kill the 3ERs and 3EC just felt too underwhelming for his character.
• Bran's development almost felt wasted. Perhaps his part was to recognise that the stab-in-the-back approach was the best strategy (in addition to seeing R+L=J), but it seems like such a waste of the "Hold the Door" reveal that showed Bran could affect characters while in the past.
• Overall, it felt like defeating the Night King didn't cost the main characters as much as it should have. In that sense, I felt short-changed as the viewer.

I can't help but compare the resolution of the Night King's arc to that of Sauron in LotR.

I know people think LotR is too black and white, but the way the story was resolved in the movies was much more satisfying to me because:

• Frodo actually failed at destroying the ring. I rewatched the scene yesterday and I love it when he turns and basically declares "the ring is mine".
• Destroying the ring cost Gollum his life, Frodo his peace, Sam his best friend, etc. It cost everyone something.
• Gandalf et al were being defeated in front of Mordor. You genuinely believed they were going to be killed if not for the ring being destroyed.
• Sauron felt powerful enough to defeat the protagonists and you knew it cost the heros a lot to defeat the big bad.

I didn't get that kind of pay off from The Long Night, which is a shame.

What thoughts do you guys have?