Weak narrative? At some point I think some of this is on the viewer and their capacity to follow along with things over the course of several seasons worth of a series. Frankly, I think that weak writing is when a screenwriter beats the audience over the head with plot points by making things blatantly obvious. I appreciate writers taking time to develop things subtly and over time. Because how am I picking up all of this stuff?
I'm not trying to be adversarial here. But I've seen all of this laid out over the course of three seasons. There have been some tangents along the way, but there's a lot that has been leading in this direction.
I think you're generously connecting dots that aren't really there to make the current season/episode's plot hold together better than it actually does. There was virtually nothing meaningful about Mandalore in the first two seasons.
Season 1:Din Djarin is a bounty hunter that stumbles on Grogu. Adventures galore. Din tries to return Grogu to "his kind", the Jedi.
Grand Moff Gideon's intentions are to capture Grogu for his genetics so they can be used in creating Dark Troopers.
There is almost no mention of Mandalore other than the religious holy land of The Covert. In the last frame of the season you see Moff Gideon with the Darksaber.
Season 2:Din Djarin is still a bounty hunter trying to return Grogu to the Jedi. Adventures galore.
Bo Katan is introduced halfway through the season with her intention to "retake Mandalore". They never mention who they need to retake Mandalore from. The Darksaber becomes a key McGuffin (so Bo Katan can unite all remaining Mandalorians in her quest) in addition to returning Grogu to the Jedi while protecting him from Moff Gideon and Dr. Pershing's Dark Trooper plan. Moff Gideon barely/never mentions Mandalore other than to gloat about its destruction. Its not hinted at that it is key to his plans, but we know he likes beskar.
Grogu is delivered to Luke, Moff Gideon is captured and the Darksaber is acquired. The missions are complete.
I don't know what the overall plan was, but I firmly believe Grogu was not intended to stay in the show beyond season 2 and was shoe-horned back in via BoBF via non-sequitur episodes because he was a fan/merchandising favorite.
Other than Bo Katan's brief screen time, there is almost no mention of Mandalore other than the religious holy land of The Covert.
Season 3:In between random episodes with Lizzo, and Dr. Pershing having moon pops on Coruscant there is lots of content about Mandalore, Bo Katan's intention to "retake it" (but we still have no idea from whom), and Moff Gideon's escape using beskar equipped troopers, and the Shadow Council are introduced along with the concept that Mandalore is important to the Empire. Heck, Bo Katan's soliloquy at 17:35 in episode 7 talks about "reawakened dormant species" as the major threat in retaking Mandalore, not Moff Gideon or any imperial remnant.
I challenge you to find any indication prior to the most recent episode (#7) that Moff Gideon cares about Mandalore as anything more than his and the Empire's original conquest of power to defeat a powerful, defiant culture that doesn't want to bend the knee to the Empire. Sure he cares about beskar, but the planet itself after it got annihilated? It appeared there was plenty of beskar that he harvested over the years from dead Mandalorian armor and other places, but there didn't seem to be any indication he was actively mining it (and there still isn't any clear indication).
Maybe I missed the hints along the way, but its still my position that they've sloppily introduced the conflict on Mandalore to drive the plot. Moff Gideon's base could be anywhere, even on a star cruiser or an outer rim planet, but the writers chose Mandalore to create conflict. Again, I'm okay with that, but will be annoyed if they get too twisty and clever after many, many episodes where Mandalore was little more than a halcyon homeland for Bo Katan or religious pilgrimage for The Covert.