Actually, I find the more contradictory part of ESO to be that apparently the world underwent another oblivion crisis back then, what with all those "Dark Anchors" everywhere.
The "Molag Bal Crisis" makes sense retroactively considering there was no Emperor of the Dragonblood on the throne and the Dragonfires were unlit. Mannimarco takes advantage of the situation and fills the same role as Mankar Camoran, producing a cult that gives Molag Bal easy access to Nirn while White Gold is offline.
Do you think greek mythology has a canon?
Mythology is interesting because there's no objective truth to it, leaving it wide open to interpretation, which is why it's an academic field (unlike, say, Harry Potter). That's how lore was in TES before now, with everything having been written from the subjective points-of-view of in-lore characters, fully open to our interpretation. Fans don't need C0DA to write subjective lore like that. All C0DA does is let fans submit their writing as objective truth not open to interpretation. Sure, it gives free license to writers to be as creative as they want with the assurance that their version of the lore won't be wrong, but in doing so it also stomps on everyone trying to interpret or debate the lore, diminishing the subjectivity that makes TES lore feel like mythology.
As much as Kirkbride uses it to escape trying to explain anything, he also uses it as a weak way of telling everyone in the community to get along and quit debating each other, ignoring the fact that it's debate that makes the lore interesting. If he wants to provide a place for people to submit their writings, that's fine, but he doesn't need to declare that all lore is created equally because that was already true for TES, and all he wound up doing was confusing subjective and objective lore. He didn't need to provide explanations for anything, he just needed to provide more lore.
As for C0DA the text, it really is lazy writing. The whole "Vivec and Friends" segment is a bunch of crazy random things crammed into each other that have nothing to do with the story, then we get a string of cameos for the sake of having cameos, and the final battle is a conversation which is well in line with TES lore, except we only get to hear one side of the conversation. I found myself generally not confused, and left with no new questions, which is the opposite of what I'd expect from Kirkbride's writing.