: Your premise is an interesting one I'd never thought about. I'd preface it
: with saying it feels a bit simplistic to assume Silva would have stayed on
: the same path we saw her (I also think you're overstating her mindset a
: bit.)

I agree that Sylva could have lost her youthful passion or even become disillusioned with the UNSC. I'm mostly extrapolating her personality and experience into something that comfortably wears Palmer's gung-ho attitude.

Palmer is casually xenophobic and reveres Spartans because she's supposed to be a badass. Sylva would be casually xenophobic and would revere Spartans because she's been through twenty five years of hell.
Sylva would still require better writing (i.e. larger vocabulary and less redundant dialog) for her character to work, but she'd probably be a better fit than Palmer.

: As for Palmer's role, I don't think switching it would have mattered if the
: execution was the same. The hatred of Palmer is something I've personally
: never really gotten. Some of it is probably just "this woman is
: telling me what to do!" sexist bull from the worst of video gaming.

Sorry, but when it comes to Palmer, I've heard "You gamers are all sexist!" used to excuse her mediocre characterization dozens of times. I've yet to hear someone complain about taking orders from a girl.
I hate Palmer for almost the exact same reasons I hate Sergeant Forge: they're terrible soldiers, terrible commanders, and The only thing she has over him is that she's never quit watching the perimeter to flirt with a scientist.

: A lot of it is probably that she was against Halsey in Spartan Ops,

Treated Halsey like toejam because of her own insecurity, yes.

: that she exemplifies the differences between the Spartan IIs and IVs,

The problem here is that Spartan IVs aren't good characters themselves. There's too much 'action hero' and 'frat boy' in the mix, and not enough 'soldier'.
And yeah, Palmer exemplifies this. She assaults a heavily defended Covenant fortress with a pair of pistols and no backup. And when mindless Forerunner killbots swarm the Infinity, you don't see a hint of fear or concern on Palmer's part. Apparently, being a badass precludes emotional depth.

: Not seeing her out in the field for the vast majority of the game probably
: influenced that.

She's a commander. She's not supposed to be out in the field unless she's leading troops. She failed that expectation twice when she assaulted a Covenant stronghold on her lonesome and when she spent an entire episode out of contact while watching Halsey.

: That she got a lot of repetitive dialogue in Spartan Ops
: didn't help.

There's a lot of intelligent criticism of Palmer's character. This right here is probably one of the best ones.

: But there are no bad characters, just bad executions of characters.

: These
: aren't problems with Palmer, they're problems with writing. So I don't
: think subbing in Silva would help in this area. On the other face of the
: coin, I think her death in Forward Unto Dawn worked and benefited the
: story because it ties into Lasky's personal growth.

I agree with all the above, actually. I'm a fan of what Schlerf did with Palmer's character, and I hope to see that kind of development continue.