Does Columbus (and Columbus day) deserve all of the controversy and revile he gets?

I tend to reject this current popular narrative.

Perhaps you can tell us why you reject that narrative. Do you think the scale was exaggerated? If so, which scale.

There was a recent thread that addressed some of your questions, such as this one.

Several relevant points I cite below:

The Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella explicitly instructed that he "endeavor to win over the natives," and "treat them well, lovingly, and abstain from causing them injury." In his first letter back to the Monarchs, he wrote, ".... so that they would be won over and, moreoever, become Christians inclined toward love ..." In reality he forbade baptism of natives except with his personal permission, in order to maintain an adequate supply of slaves.

... to make up for this he enslaved the natives and pressed them to look for gold for him. This went explicitly against royal decree, which had forbidden him from doing exactly this. To further raise funds, he shipped off slaves back to Spain to be sold there, only for them to be released by royal decree instead.

... he may have been "over his head" but he explicitly went against Fonseca, a royal administrator sent along with him on the second voyage explicitly to help organize the activities, because he wanted to keep all control to himself.

Finally, his treatment of fellow Spaniards were well above the norm of "torture" and "punishment" of the time. He cut off limbs and body parts. This was not normal even in early modern Spain. And certainly not in view of what was mostly minor offenses. So, to say he was "just inherently a bad person" is really not accurate.

If you truly want to have an informed opinion on Columbus, I highly recommend that you read a well-researched and well-analyzed history book on the subject. For which I like: Fernández-Armesto's Columbus, 1991, ISBN-13: 978-0192158987.