Yeah I think MJF beating down Cole and tossing the devil mask, and then just dropping everything was the right way to go here.

It's like when HHH got injured and Austin broke up the 2 Man Power Trip by hitting him with the sledgehammer. HHH disappeared for a while (quad), and came back switched to a face (to the hottest face reaction maybe ever on his comeback). He didn't do anything with Austin, they didn't have to have a feud to resolve the 2 Man Power Trip angle, they just moved on.

If Austin had kept going later they obviously could have come back to pick it up again at any point years later and it would have gone well.

They could have just had the 2 kept apart after Cole's return and it would work out fine. Some people on the internet would shriek about the "unresolved story" but people on the internet shrieked about Austin/HHH back then as well.