Where's my Achebe ?
People noticing the lack of prominent black male actors (other than M'Baku) doesn't mean they're putting down women, just so much as this was a movie with a powerful, inspirational, black male lead that was important for young kids and people in general and now it's...gone. And like every other male character is either dead, in jail, etc.
To be honest I think Wakanda is as much defined in relation to T'Challa as T'Challa is defined by Wakanda. And, I mean, one of the best Black Panther runs had T'Challa in New York basically being a fill-in Daredevil while still being in-character, which just goes to show how strong his character is.
And I think it's really downplaying his impact to say that T'Challa wasn't an instrumental and major part of why the movie did so well. Wakanda literally would not exist without T'Challa and he's the very center of the entire mythos.
It's like saying you don't need Batman to tell Gotham stories but no one would say Batman isn't a fundamentally important character to Gotham.