That might have been the better way, yes. It is very difficult to get an audience from a Youtuber to follow you on Twitch, so if she would have proceeded on Youtube instead, there is a good chance she would have retained a bigger audience from pewdiepie and could have build on that.
I had such a huge laugh at her recent story where she pretended like she just discovered a new angle, when all she wanted to do was just showing off her ass in the tight dress she was wearing. You are spot on though, she really just tries to justify all that playing all sorts of mental gymnastics, because she doesn't want to admit she is becoming a Twitch thot as well.
Side note, Aiste is a MAJOR attention whore. I have seen lots of girls on Twitch who are just straight up narcissists and super desperate for approval, but Aiste might take the crown. Even though she always pretends to be super humble.
That is actually a very good point. I remember she had multiple big streamers pushing her over time. One was a big german (i think?) streamer called mcky, the other one was diegosaurus when she started playing Apex with him. Another one was Dakotaz during her Among Us time, who also hosted her multiple times. She did also have some streams together with Sweet Anita. And of course her whole career basically only exists because of pewdiepie. It is so funny how she actually believes she was successful herself, when all she had was such a lot of luck and being at the right place at the right time.