Can't agree with you more (we will never know what really happened or what Hamilton intended to do). The public wanted to canonize Hamilton. Hamilton did apparently give the same advice to his son (firing into the air) who died in a duel three years before (at least according to Chernow). The younger Hamilton apparently aimed but shot after being struck.
One of the main problems is that Burr, for the most part, kept his mouth shut and although he was a prodigious writer he entrusted all his papers to his daughter Theodosia who was lost at sea along with the trunk containing Burr's papers.
Our view of the whole event and of Burr's character are all informed by the opinions of others, mostly Burr's enemies (and he had a lot).
...but Burr got to him first.
(Nyuk, nyuk!)