Do you think Gabriel's writing flaws were meant to be intentional character flaws?
It really depends on which flaw you're referring to. Some seem accidental, some seem intentional, and some are the result of the show's formulaic nature (and arguably the writers' skills) holding him back.
Let's start with an example of that last point: Gabriel squanders opportunities left and right while creating the most asinine plans you can think of and only wins in the season four and five finals because of sheer dumb luck. In spite of this, I think that he is genuinely supposed to be seen as clever and creative. That's why you get Nathalie spouting lines like this one from Catalyst:
Nathalie: As predicted, [Lila's] anger will reach devastating heights. Your plan is perfect, sir.
Gabriel: Ladybug never makes a mistake!
Nathalie: Neither do you.
And a whole host of other moments from seasons three and four where Nathalie just straight up fawns over Gabriel's brilliance. Even in season five, she still seems to think that he's a genius, she just wants him to give up on winning to spend his final days with Adrien.
You don't write that kind of dialogue unless Gabriel is supposed to be smart or Nathalie is supposed to be a bit of a fool (or, at the very least, someone blinded by love). I think it's pretty clear that Nathalie is not supposed to come across as lacking in the intelligence department and her admiration continues after her "redemption", so the most logical conclusion here is that Gabriel is supposed to be a smart villain. We're supposed to think that he makes really cool and intelligent plans.
The problem is that, if Gabriel was smart, then he'd have won ages ago. The butterfly is simply too powerful for him to lose. If you want to play him as a genuine threat, but also keep his losses believable, then - at the very least - you have to majorly nerf the butterfly. You also need to let him actually plan and scheme, setting up future akuma victims over multiple episodes before they come to fruition. Due to the show's format, we rarely get this. I think that Scarlet Moth and Miracle Queen are the only real exceptions. While they're the rare exceptions, I will note that their existence also backs this "Gabriel is supposed to be smart" read, the formula just doesn't allow him to come across that way.
This issue is why formula shows favor serious one-off villains that get defeated by the episode's end or non-threatening over-the-top comedic villains that return time and time again. For an example of the first, think the antagonists in crime serials like NICS or Sherlock Holmes stories and for the later think of pretty much every villain in Kim Possible or Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb.
The reason why formula shows take these paths is that it's genuinely difficult to have a villain that shows up every week and never wins, but who also feels like a true threat. At some point, the villain starts feeling incompetent because they're the ones making the plans. The puzzle masters. That puts them at a strong advantage. For a smart Gabriel to work, the show would need to be way less formulaic and/or his story would need to be much shorter. The butterfly nerf is also a must in my book.
In my intro, I also mentioned unintentional flaws. When I said that, I was primarily referring to the child abuse and Gabriel's general attitude toward his son. The writers seem to be genuinely oblivious to how badly Gabriel came across as the show went on. In the first season or two, I could have given the writers some grace on this topic as Gabriel's behavior could be argued as the cartoonish exaggeration of an overprotective-but-not-abusive parent just like Marinette's parents get to be cartoonishly loving at times and Marinette's crush is cartoonishly over-the-top.
We also had moments like the end of Gorizilla and Style Queen which gave Gabriel a chance to show off his love for Adrien and give it some real narrative weight. After Chat Blanc, that grace was gone and the show would continue to paint Gabriel as worse and worse right up until the season five final where all that terrible behavior culminated in Gabriel... getting a happy ending?
While it's always possible that later seasons will actually address Gabriel's abuse, it's pretty hard to come back from an ending that let him ascend into the light with his wife while smiling and perfectly at peace. That's not the ending that you give to a black-hearted villain who views his son as nothing more than a tool. The only logical read here is that Gabriel was supposed to be sympathetic and he was supposed to love Adrien, just not enough to pick Adrien over Emilie. Why heal yourself and be with your son when you can just die so that you don't have to live without your wife? What a positive and uplifting message for children!
To finish this up, let's quickly touch on the intentional flaws. There are mostly the things that even a five-year-old could pick up on because that is the show's target audience. Gabriel's arrogance, his unwillingness to give up, and his inability to see other points of view are very clearly meant to be his true flaws. He's also apparently supposed to be a creative contrast to Marinette with him being cold mass-production and her being individualism, but the writers kind of forgot to put that into the show. I think Marinette gets five designs and Gabriel gets two, making it somewhat difficult to see one as a font of individuality and one as an evil, mass-market fast-fashion producer. I'm not even sure what kind of fashion Gabriel creates!
In conclusion, Gabriel is as much of an inconsistent mess as Marinette is, which is unsurprising since they're arguably the two main characters. The ones with key roles in basically every episode. That meant that they had to warp and twist Gabriel to make the akuma of the day work even if that akuma made Gabriel look like a monster by doing things like attacking Adrien. It's just a variant of the way they had to warp Marinette into being wrong even if she really wasn't or if it went against her established character. This makes it hard to pick up on the "true" Gabriel, but I've always been of the opinion that he's supposed to read as a smart, sympathetic villain who loves his family, but is driven to evil by grief and an unwillingness to move on. The ending just sealed that read for me even though I 100% agree that this is not the character that they actually wrote. It's just who they clearly wanted to write.
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