I suspect we're just not going to agree on this. For example, I've seen lots of people saying the "more duplicitous than Lex" comment suggests the writers are saying Tess is better than Lex, but I really don't agree. I think I read that as "Lex always lied by telling the truth, while they just lie to lie" or something like that.

And for me, if they had gone immediately to a non-Luthorcorp villain, that would have been erasing Lex more surely than having his minions take over--especially in an episode which is all about searching for Clark. If the whole JL was looking for Clark and no one was looking for Lex, that would have really been like an erasure of him, for me.