Why do you think they're trying to hide Nellie in Samantha's stories?
Honestly, I don't think it's just Nellie they're trying to bury with Samantha's world, so to speak, I think it's everything that has to do with Samantha's theming that doesn't necessary make certain individuals of a certain pearl clutching direction happy.
Like sure, Samantha still has elements of her original stories that pop up in the marketing but it's nothing that would get AG a segment on Fox News. And let's be real, even if Samantha's story stuff isn't super accurate for the time period, you really think that her story as it was would fly in today's market if it wasn't tied to people's nostalgia? Forget Nellie or Sam speaking out against child labor, people would be up in arms because the kid was rude to Eddie more than once and Grandmary being chill with Cordelia after the whole 'yeah I let my sisters and your granddaughter run around New York alone'.
Samantha is that company's metaphorical princess; the easy way to test the waters and make sales on something even if it doesn't need her, and they can't risk their sales if their 'golden goose'/princess has anything would dare offend anyone, even if it's to the determent of the character. (Insert your own 'Knights of Guinevere' joke here)
Now full disclosure that is my theory and my admittedly jaded perspective on the company given the choices I've seen them make along the years and what factors in the world that may or may not have shown that. For all we know they don't have Nellie because the higher ups literally don't know who this character is or it's Eddie's revenge for being Thanos-snapped in the BeForever/Post BeForever books.
