I see your argument but Captain Marvel is more than that.
I used to love Captain Marvel (or as she was known at the time Warbird or Ms Marvel) back in the 80's and 90's. She was always a good side character. The hero herself isnt bad, she was great when put alongside the Avenegrs/Iron Man/X-Men books during that time. Carol Danvers was always a character who was hot headed and bit headstrong and struggled with her own demons and as well as being flawed due to her overconfidence and stubbornness.
Not sure where this 'she was supposed to be a sex symbol' hero came from though, I haven't seen any proof of that. although it was the 70's so it doesn't surprise me. Even in the 90's was was drawn like a Pamela Anderson lol. So who knows maybe you are right :P
The problem is her transition into a solo character, (which has worked before) which hasn't been that good. We can go back to 2012 when they really started trying to make her a figure head of Marvels universe, which I can understand why. Marvel really doesn't have any solo women heroes like DC does, So they wanted Captain Marvel to be the woman to do that.
The problem is while trying to create Marvels main female I do feel they over tried, or tried too hard. As since 2012 I found it so hard to get into her comics. She had her moments. Her recent series Life of Captain Marvel Vol 2 has been awesome so far by the way.
Her run from 2016 has been even worse, with bad writing horrible art work, and the birth of Carol Manvers which is totally warranted due to how awful that art was in her books.
I mean holy shit... I can draw better than that.
So yes they really screwed Captain Marvel over, and most of the writers that try and take her up don;t seem to understand her character at all. And once again maybe thats due to her being a side chaarcter so long.
But once again I like Captain Marvel. Carol Danvers is a great hero, it;s just no one has been able to do her justice for the last 7 years. The events of Civil War 2 didn't help either when they made her even more hated when she was on the wrong side of the argument in that. They basically did to her what the first Civil War did to Iron Man, the only comfort is knowing that Iron Man at least recovers from that horrible event and rebuilt fans love of him again because they had good writers to execute that. The writers on Captain Marvel are just making her worse and worse.
And now with the fact she has become the excuse of everything wrong with 'SJW' Marvel makes me sad, because I know she is better than that. We have all seen it when she was Warbird, as MS Marvel as Binery and even as Captain Marvel when she was Captain Marvel before.
I know what Marvel are trying to do with Captain Marvel, but they have gone about it all wrong. I honestly think she just isn't clicking either, her comics are not even selling great but they keep making them. I honestly miss the old Carol Danvers. The side character Carol Danvers who was a far developed and better character than in the hands of writers who write her now. How does that even happen?
Kurt Busiek wrote a great Carol Danvers in his Avengers and Iron Man runs in the late 90's
I just hope that this movie will break that trend, I mean the Disney/Marvel did a better Civil wAr movie than the comics, so here's hoping they do a better Captain Marvel than the comics too :P
EDIT:
wow that rant went on for longer than I thought. Whelp off to bed :S