> without payoff

I'd say R2-D2's design paid off tremendously. People loved it! It made potentially billions. Billions isn't enough of a payoff?

What if Chekhov's gun is in my story, solely because it polls better among readers?

Apparently, choosing a gender for your protagonist/antagonist is "lazy".

Is the author suggesting our characters should all be genderless? Because that's equally as absurd.

Murderbot gets a passing mention in the section where the bots gender is important for the plot. But at least in the books, the bot is specifically genderless and prefers "it" pronouns.

Different (voice) actors playing the role maybe fall into the second section of the article, but in the book at least there's a specific attempt to address this with a third way.