@noiob
Hot take, The Ashley Graham parts of Resident Evil 4 are perceived as being bad because people don't understand what they were supposed to be: your primary objective is to save Ashley from evil cultists who want to kidnap her. Everything else is just stuff you have to do along the way. The reason she is seemingly a useless damsel in distress is because she is a civilian who you as a spec ops officer have been tasked with rescuing, and the reason the cultists will ignore you and try to grab her is because she is their primary objective and trying to kill you is just instrumental to that.

That said, the remake would be better if she was a mouse. There should be a mod that makes her a mouse and you just keep her in your pocket. She never gets kidnapped because you have her in your pocket, and the only times you get separated is if she falls out. When you meet her she tells you she is cheesed to meet you, then she meets a cultist and tells them she is cheesed to meet them too.