I don't disagree with much of that. I still think the tears were genuine.
It would seem that the obvious solution for both parties does seem to have been for him to stay and play for nothing, or next to nothing, which makes me think there's more to all this than meets the eye. Barcelona should have let him go when he asked to last summer.
There's an interesting article here about the idea of him playing for free, you may have read it already
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2021/aug/10/messis-exit-shows-players-are-abottom-of-footballs-power-structure-barcelona
Either way, he's still one of the top three footballers I've seen in my lifetime, possibly the best but Diego has something to say about that...
I have been to Barcelona a few times but not in the last twenty years so have missed the effigies.