I bought a used copy of the Star Wars RPG's core rule book many years ago (although I never quite got around to asking anyone I knew if they wanted to play it with me), and I remember it mentioning Han stepping on the twig as an example of "how to spin the dice not rolling the way you wanted into developing the story." As for a story that presumably didn't depend on rolling dice, pondering "controlled destiny" reminds me of having seen just a few days ago some insistences "Han must be using the Force without realizing it," although your suggestions might not be quite how those making the insistences wanted to see it.

Unfortunately, I also have to admit that while I do my best to not make "harsh judgements of the lines and how they're delivered" the only measure of a movie, some of the Endor scenes on location do have me thinking of all the accusations that Harrison Ford, offended his character wasn't going to be killed off the way he'd wanted, had stopped bothering to act. My best counterbalance against that seems your own comments that "the symbolically reborn Han is becoming a different sort of person."