I am not a portrait shooter, as I mainly go for wildlife, so take my opinion for what it is worth- not much!
I really like the series. She is smiling, and looks a s if she is having fun, and this comes through in the images.
Also, I agree with you that the model looks how she looks, and that is how she wants to look, and that is who she is. Otherwise, you might as well just get AI to invent something it considers to be perfect, based on its own robotic view of perfection.
I think you may be missing the point. The one commenter was suggesting that nobody typically would tan their legs significantly darker than the rest of their body to make the point that the model is not evenly lit top to bottom. Either you need to "feather" the light downward more, or add a second light to the mix, or use a strip box or some other method to light up her bottom half so the skin tones more evenly match. If she was wearing light color pants possibly it would be less of an issue.
This is a rather nuanced or subtle lighting technical issue and the average "non-photography forum" viewer wouldn't really notice or care. I don't know about the other commenter, but I've made this lighting error on a number of occasions so I am a bit sensitive to it.
I think the OP misconstrued the comment as criticizing the physical appearance of the model when he, the commenter, was perhaps somewhat inelegantly merely drawing attention to the lighting setup causing skin tone variation top to bottom.
. the appearance of skin tones do look more natural in this shot.
