I don't think anyone dislikes Hebishima personally but it is what he represents people dislikes. Like other people said he is a distraction to the main plot and a obstacle to Asuna and Suguha threesome.
I just didn't like Hebishima because I like Sugu more than Asuna and she was no doubt gonna just end up as a used-up whore with him in the end, and also because Inoda taking her would mean I got to see a Suguha x Asuna threesome in the game. However, is not so much as people hating him for who/what he is but the fact he's not the "main character", if this game had been about Hebishima stealing Asuna and all the other girls nobody would have a problem with him, the main issue is not so much people hate him as he's basically a distraction from the main plot.
Basically, as Lionheart says here, Hebishima really wouldn't be an issue if he was the main character, but between him being a side-plot that takes away from the Inoda/Asuna time (Which is the only thing most people want the game to focus on) and his heavy contrast with Inoda his character just serves no purpose now, at least in Fujino's eyes, because what's the point of putting effort into his plot of corrupting Suguha and (maybe) Shino too if most of the players don't care for it? So by that logic getting rid of him and folding the girls from his plot into Inoda's would make more sense.
Honestly the easiest thing to do was just taking Hebishima out of the game, but an alternative that would've been just as easy was simply make Hebishima NTR of Sugu an optional event trigger rather than making it a forcibly triggered NTR event just to progress.
As you said, that option would have meant extra work Fujino would put himself into for "no reason" (As most people made it clear apparently that they only cared for the Asuna plot but he still clearly wanted to make Sugu's plot, which I'm thankful for as I like her more than Asuna and he made it a quite big enough presence to get a lot of nice scenes of her). Removing Hebishima would indeed be the most logical option as it would mean less work and would still let him make H-scenes of Suguha/Shino while also focusing/advancing the Inoda plot more which is what most people wanted.
It would be a huge trolololol if Fujino decided in the next expansion to turn Hebishima into Kyles Cousin Kyle from South Park and bust in first thing in the next patch, Hebishima comes off the bus and shouts "I'M BAAAAACK!!!" lmao
What? how would Inoda having a harem contradict that Asuna is only ever going to be with Inoda?
He's one of the people convinced that the point of the main story is that Inoda's obsession with Asuna means he should only be exclusively focused with Asuna and that any other girls are just tools he's using before fully getting her (And that he then would/should stop giving a fuck about/discard once he manages that), even when his possessiveness over Asuna's mom has already been made obvious, and therefore Inoda getting more girls isn't "good" because it ruins the "Inoda only wants Asuna" view (Even though it's a NTR game with a plot where he's clearly just obsessed with her and just, understandably so, has become addicted to sex after experiencing it before, therefore he obviously enjoys fucking Asuna's mom whenever he can while still waiting for his plan to fully "recover" Asuna).
Inoda getting a full harem is not bad but the issue is focus. The premise of the game was Inoda making Asuna love him not Inoda finding his sexual awakening and becoming a sex god. If you want hot SAO girls orgies then finding videos is much quicker than waiting for game updates.
Oh well in that case, whiles i do agree that Inoda seems to hold Asuna at a higher standard than any of the other girls, i doubt he would just leave any of the other girls just to only have Asuna. If anything i think it is more likely that it becomes a kind of "the more the merrier" kind of situation.
See, that's the thing, regardless of if Hebishima is gone or not, the other girls WILL still be around. Suguha and Shino ARE going to have scenes in the game and their own plots already, he made their models and such, he won't scrap them even if Hebishima is scrapped, so I would say a good midway point would be that instead of they being used for a side-plot most people didn't care about then they're better used to fuel Inoda's goal of taking Asuna. After all, Suguha WAS gonna get sex scenes that were NOT "Inoda gets Asuna-focus" anyway, so wouldn't it be better if the plot of writing Hebishima gets removed, which is already less writing, and Suguha's scenes get turned into ways of furthering Asuna falling to Inoda? (Like her getting jealous Inoda is fucking every other girl but her now as she's still chronically longing for his dick) Sure it may not be the ending/route you wanted, but it would still reduce the amount of focus away from Inoda getting Asuna even if by a small margin, and could be used to add even more Asuna/Inoda content really (Like making it so that there are 2 or more girls during "fights" so that one or more could "block" Kirito's view while Inoda molests or outright fucks Asuna, for example).
Pretty much what I think, yes, while Inoda clearly focuses more on Asuna he has shown to be quite unstable mentally, he goes from praising her as a goddess to insulting her like a bitch in his blog when she didn't immediately start being all over him after they had sex in the rainy night, that combined with his newfound love of sex tells me he WOULD keep all the girls around as his fuck-toys even if he really got Asuna, maybe even regularly have orgies, and I don't mind that myself, but some people as mentioned find that "wrong" because it apparently takes away from what they wanted of it being a purely Asuna/Inoda-focused thing (Which already wasn't gonna be with the introduction of Asuna's mom and then Liz anyway).
You just prove my point those other girls are needless distractions. Suguha and Shino are part of Hebishima's story. At least in Part 1, it seem like they will remain only part of his story. But probably because of fan desires to see harems and orgies, those girls who had nothing to do with Inoda now has to be force fitted into Inoda's story.
