Funny how they pledged their vote for her even before the first debate then.

Which they always do. Super Delegates state their preferred candidate at the start; They are saying who they prefer, not saying they will vote for that person if they lose. "Pledged" is a line made up by Berniecrats who deliberately misrepresented the purpose of the Superdelegate system. They are not 'pledged' and their support is nothing more than preference before the convention.

It had an undeniable effect on the election from the start, especially when their votes were mixed in with state delegate allocation, making it look like a landslide for her from the start.

Except that Obama faced a similar uphill battle in Super Delegates in 2008 and weirdly enough, he won.

The superdelegate system is indefensible bullshit and I believe you know that

No, the Superdelegate system is a functionally irrelevant relic of the DISASTER that was George McGovern's nomination, only there so that the party could prevent a thoroughly unqualified candidate or break a floor tie to end a close fight. It has never changed the outcome of an election and it is only mentioned because Bernie supporters cannot accept that he ran a poor campaign.

He didn't contest the South, the only region HRC was completely shut out of in 2008.

He started his campaign too late and chose to complain about rules regarding late registrations even though they were known years in advance.

He failed to address minority issues, as if anyone is going to win the Democratic primary on just the white vote

He failed to play the media, giving identical speeches and the same talking points and ensuring that his campaign wasn't actually generating any news and also creating the impression that he didn't have any opinion on local issues

He didn't attempt to appeal to centrist or establishment Democrats, both of whom vote heavily in primaries

His campaign also generally had poor ground game, inexperienced organizers who had never run a campaign on that type or scale and too much focus on small-time volunteers knocking on doors rather than larger scale operations that require more experienced people. His campaign was bungled and botched from the start and Superdelegates are a scapegoat for people who just can't admit Saint Bernie ran a bad campaign.