I'm not really sure what I think of the ending. On the one hand it was fairly anticlimactic, you go in expecting a huge mech fight and get a bunch of philosophy. Nothing wrong with that, just anticlimactic. On the other hand though, I actually enjoyed this alternate ending, it brought a smile to my face, and Shinji's alternate world where everything was just a dream made me laugh a few times just because of the parallels of everything. Overall I think I liked the ending, but it did make the series of mech fights and the two or three mindscrews that actually worked feel a bit needless.