Charles Schulz was writing about his own internal struggles and observations reconciling the world he saw to the one he expected. The characters were intended as humorous portraits of the various vices he noticed, both his own and around him. He was painfully shy, prone to depressive bouts, and his first wife was a world class shrew, the basis for Lucy.
Underneath it all, however, was an unyielding hopefulness. Charlie Brown lost over and over again, struggled, but in the end, he didn’t give up. Schulz made sure he never kicked the football, but Charlie Brown had something better than success: determination.
Peanuts' appeal was exactly for the reasons you give; ultimately all the messages are hopeful. It was the wacky characters and situations that gave the strip its charm. These were things that all kids could relate to. This was nothing new, of course, and has been done a million times since but Shultz managed to walk the line between overwhelming insanity and saccharine sweetness perfectly. And it appealed to kids exactly because it operated at their level. Sure adults also read the strip but in a detached way.
No one ever walked away after reading Peanuts feeling the weight of the world. The unyielding hopefulness and determination that you mention was always there, despite the unending machinations of Lucy, deranged antics of Snoopy, and all the rest. OP's take on the strip forgets what it's like to be a kid, surrounded by forces you don't fully comprehend and definitely are not in control of. The difference from the real world being, of course, that sometimes the real world is also very scary and dangerous.
I really appreciate well thought out and written comments like these. Kudos to both of you.
That's probably the best version I've seen/heard
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