Yes. He knew what would happen under the assimilation. (HINT: exactly the same thing that happened at the end of the first film, in case you forgot.)
I refuse to recognize the fourth movie as part of the canon.
Even without the existence of the fourth movie, we know Zion survived and the cycle that the architect had for all the Neos was broken.
It is a lazy, politically correct cash grab done by someone who had no idea what they were doing
Nah, it was made by the same people who made the first three. What is clear from the scenes when the "Matrix game" is being discussed or when Neo is talking to his game dev boss is that the film was intentionally done badly so that Warner Brothers wouldn't force them to make a fifth film the same way they were being forced to make a fourth film.