IMO, they just wanted to explain why dax was staying with the show. I'm sure they had future episodes in mind where they needed sisko to call some woman "old man" for some reason. Rather than writing that out, they just made to some crap to make it "make sense" why dax didn't leave ds9.

Apparently it's easier to rewrite Jadzia into Ezri and make her rather incompetent in the process. IMO, the biggest loss was that Jadzia had a certain sass to her that was entirely lost with Ezri. I don't blame Nicole at all, as far as I'm concerned, she did an excellent job, it's just how the character was written. Poorly. Dax as a character became timid and submissive, compared to the commanding presence that Terry had with the character, it was rather different. IMO, it would have made more sense to have dax, the symbiote, depart the show with Terry/Jadzia, and just bring in Ezri as a young officer instead.... Just write out the whole simbyote entirely.... But no, they needed a reason for Sisko to give her the time of day. Not because he respects her as a person, or a citizen of the federation, or an officer of star fleet, but because she used to be a dude that was friends with him.

Idiotic.

When I think back on all the ds9 stuff with this context in mind, it paints a grim picture of what Berman was all about. Though you can see examples of his unique personality in other shows, I think DS9 has some of the most blatant and obvious portrayals of what he wanted, reflecting who he was as a person. It's just, not a pretty picture.

I'm glad that Ezri Dax got better fleshed out in the books. Nicole de Beor was a great addition to the show and they did a lot with her in the short amount of time left. But the reason she was an addition to the show was just so stupid.