I ('m apparently the last person in the world who) just watched this show for the first time recently. It had its cool moments and was an overall positive experience, but the reliance on outdated (even then) freudian ideas hurts it a bit. Not to mention the slideshows.
I think that if you read it symbolically it doesn't really matter whether the psychological model is inaccurate. This is why literary critics still use Freud in discussions. It's not about whether the model is accurate; the point is that these symbols provide a set of archetypes that we can then relate other things to. Freudian stuff in art criticism (when used well) is more of a shared vocabulary for discussing things than a reductive framework.
Not sure if that's your gripe. I used to dislike Freudian language/themes for a similar reason but realize now that I was taking it more literally than I now do.
I would recommend anyone who have seen all the material to watch The Curse of Evangelion (39min) [1]
It meta analyzes the series and movies in chronological order. It explains the director's message to the fans about escapism from reality and the dangers of it.
The first EVA series had a massive impact on the anime industry in a bad way; It create more obsessed fans who escape from reality with it and make their lives miserable, even though the series talks about the dangers of it.
Rebuild (released 14 years later) criticizes the impact and how fans misinterpreted the earlier series. He sends a message that you (the obsessed fan) can rebuild your life for the better and stop escaping reality.
As a somewhat obsessed anime watcher it hit pretty close to home. I think the director is sad how early EVA and the impact it had, helped create more hikikomoris[2] instead of less.
I might remembered some stuff wrong above, it was a while ago I saw it.
