I never made the claim that the poll results indicate strong dislike towards Zoey's scene. Sounds like a strawman right here. What I said, is that the poll results do not provide feedback on how many people actually dislike Zoey's scene, and hence is not good enough evidence to prove the notion that "Only very few people actually dislike Zoey" which the previous poster was trying to leverage on.So the fact that the Zoey scene was voted as a favourite scene is somehow evidence that there are more than 'dozens of us' type folks that dislike Zoey? A bit of a stretch. You don't have the data to reverse a conclusion like that out of it. It's possible, but with what we have, that's just a story, not an argument.
I do agree that having that scene happen with no player input is difficult, but at the same time it is the most elegant solution to keep most player autonomy with having Ashe lose her virginity. If you let the player choose who they gave their V-card to, the coding and branching would quickly become a nightmare. If you forced Ashe to fuck Fiona or Natasha, fans that just see Fiona as a bestie, and everyone that hates the rape cop would complain loudly. Zoey is kinda the perfect choice. Doesn't have an established relationship with Ashe, but is vouched for by close friends. Leaves almost immediately, so Ashe, newly unburdened by her anxiety over her virginity, can now go out and start making choices for herself. Like Fiona and Natasha.
What's a better solution, considering the work that would have to be done? I don't think there is one, though you could ignore the event altogether so the choice ends up meaning nothing more than a different array of pictures. And I wouldn't want the writing to be undercut, since it is probably the strongest aspect of the game (that has many strong aspects).
As for the virgnity solution, I personally think that Zoey can choose any of the character she wants to have sex with first, without the decision of "who" popped her cherry being an important plot point.
From what I have saw in the game so far, "who" took her virginity doesn't seem to be crucial to the plot at all, it is moreso her action of "losing her virginity" that separates the story into the second half where we play as a non-virgin Ashe for the rest of the game. Heck, almost no one even cared who Ashe lost her virginity towards, they were just glad that she lost it. The person who took it didn't really matter.
So, why not, just make it so that Ashe can lose her virginity to anyone of her choice in the story, and the plot continues with "non virgin Ashe" afterwards? Plenty of other games have done something like this too without it changing the story drastically.