E.T. and other kids' movies that actually have a disturbing or nihilistic message

I can agree with that.

Which others? Edna isn’t superpowered at all, and nobody else in the movie exhibits that character flaw. Mr. Incredible wants the action and adventure of it all, there’s no question about that part of it. The thrill comes from doing good in the first place, even if there is an egotistical component. He’s got an outsize ego to go with his abilities, for sure. But again, unless we insist that people do the right thing and hate it all the time, I don’t see that as a problem. Mr. Incredible wants to be great. That requires a certain level of ego. He wants his son to be great, which requires the same.
But the difference between Mr. Incredible and Syndrome isn’t that one has superpowers and one doesn’t, it’s a difference in character. One is bound and determined to do good, even if he wants to be loved in return and his efforts are sometimes marred by poor impulse control. The other just wants to be loved, and happily hurts and kills people and spreads misery to get revenge and his opportunity. That’s far more childish, although something like sociopathic or demented is a better word for it.

The Lorax

a disturbing message of what we are doing to our environment out of greed and recklessness

, if one’s wardrobe consists of mostly white and black and may be a wee bit psychotic - are they a penguin trapped in human form?

You could make the case, IMO, that Edna is superpowered in the same sense that Syndrome is. Her costumes aren’t just costumes, they are technologic marvels. Her superpower is her intelligence. She refers to her clients as “gods.” Edna, it seems, sees herself somewhat in the role of Vulcan in that pantheon.
Syndrome’s ego we already discussed. BTW, when I refer to him existing because of Mr. Incredible, that doesn’t mean Mr. Incredible deliberately “made” him. It’s much like the Batman/Joker relationship as it is sometimes presented. If Mr. Incredible had been a furniture mover instead of a superhero, there would have been no Syndrome. Buddy might or might not_due to his character_have gone on to become a criminal; but his existence in the persona of Syndrome is a direct result of Mr. Incredible’s actions. Those oafish actions were, IMO, due to Mr. Incredible’s ego.
Note that Mr. Incredible wasn’t shocked by the idea of having a sidekick. For all we know, youthful sidekicks are as common in their world as they once were in comic books. We disagree on why he didn’t want to partner up with Buddy, but Mr. Incredible’s “I work alone!” statement was flatly untrue.

He, “works alone,” as in not with a minor subordinate sidekick. Even with full adult Supers who have powers of their own he is not shown as being a team player. Professionally, Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible were competitors in the same field. He didn’t work well with either her or Frozone back in the old days, though they were obviously friends outside of work. It wasn’t until the end of the movie — when he’d had 15 years of domestic partnership and life as a “normal” to train him, and had recently had humbling and probably life-changing experience — that he cooperated effectively with others.

Besides which, he explicitly tells Buddy that what he does is dangerous. He thinks hero work is not suitable for a child, especially one without protective innate abilities, and most especially a minor who is volunteering himself for hero work without the consent of his parents. In the scene with Bomb Voyage, Buddy nearly gets himself killed, and he would have died if it wasn’t for Mr. Incredible.

Granted, Mr. Incredible could have been more tactful in how he rejected Buddy, but let’s face it, the kid had been harrassing him for who knows how long, had interfered with the apprehension of a criminal, and had put himself and, indirectly, other people in considerable danger. He had already told Buddy on multiple other occasions that he wasn’t interested in having a sidekick. I think I would have lost my damn patience with Buddy too, and I’m a lot less volatile than Mr. Incredible is shown to be.

Given the world the writers set up, which is remarkably internally consistent for a movie of this type, no the Supers couldn’t have worked in fields that let them use their abilities. The whole reason for secret identities is to give them some security when they’re not working. No one, not even Superman, could be on all the time. Anything that had the possibility of “outing” them would have to be avoided. They or their families (who are not necessarily Supers; the Parrs appear to be an exception here) would be in danger if anyone knew who they were. It’s hinted that they would have faced persecution from normals, and they had certainly made a lot of enemies, both Super and non-Super villains.

That means anything that could expose Bob’s exceptional strength and toughness would be out. No furniture moving, no sports, nothing physical. Two scenes cut from the movie for time and flow reasons were: 1) Buddy as Syndrome invading the Parr’s house in the middle of the night and kidnapping Jack-Jack. That kicked off the story in the earlier version of the script. There would probably be dozens of villains like him trying to attack their family if Bob or Helen’s real identities were revealed. 2) Bob not paying enough attention to what he was doing and “cutting” his fingers with a knife at a barbeque. Helen and he have to leave suddenly, covering up the fact that the knife blade was damaged while Bob wasn’t hurt at all. Their nervousness shows that little slips like that could be very damaging.

Something else I just remembered from the movie was that they all still have lawsuits that could be brought against them. As part of the amnesty they were to go into hiding and not use their powers. Every time Bob screws up, the government has settled these new suits out of court and paid money to move his family. But if their protection were removed, he would probably be financially ruined, even if he had no new suits brought against him.

I get that you and a few other people don’t like the movie, but I think that you’re looking at it from an extremely biased point of view. As I pointed out earlier, super-powers are not be significantly different from other gifts. It is manifestly unfair to say that one group of people should not use their abilities. It sets a double standard, where the exceptional are obliged to hobble themselves so that they don’t outshine those who are less adept. I find that attitude pretty darn distasteful, myself.

First, scenes that aren’t in the movie don’t count.
Secondly, it isn’t explained in the context of the movie why the supers have never done anything with their powers other than choose to be costumed vigilantes. If they weren’t costumed vigilantes, they wouldn’t have enemies. Of course, for the sake of there being a movie in the first place it had to be this way. Likewise, if they weren’t acting as costumed vigilantes, there wouldn’t be any lawsuits. Bob the super furniture mover would have liability insurance just like Bob the non-super furniture mover.
Thirdly, the movie gives us no evidence that, apart from Syndrome, there are or ever have been any supervillains.
Lastly, what you are ignoring is that supers are_by definition_outside the parameters of even the highest functioning normal humans. Such abilities, if they existed, would be quite different from other gifts. Being Superman isn’t the same thing as being Magic Johnson.
I find the same thing distasteful about The Incredibles that I find distasteful about a pretty fair amount of comic books and escapist literature: the heroes are the heroes because they were born the heroes. This is exactly why I prefered Batman over Superman as a kid. Superman didn’t do anything to become Superman. Bruce Wayne made himself into Batman. In the world of The Incredibles, the only way to be super is to be born that way. The only one who makes himself super is the villain.
Let me put my reaction to the movie in more real world terms. Who do you admire: A man who inherits a fortune or a man who earns a fortune?

Bomb Voyage? The Underminer? Dr. Evil somebody or other that Frozone talks about while he and Bob are waiting in the car?

OTOH, I did wonder at the time what happened to those kinds of villains once the supers went underground.

I think that sums up Lex Luthor’s beef with Superman, doesn’t it?

I suppose it might depend on whether I were an egalitarian or not. Egalitarianism hasn’t always been held up as a primary value of society, ya know.

Bomb Voyage is just some boob with explosives. The Underminer is a guy in a digging machine. Don’t remember the Dr. Evil guy. Is there any evidence of villains who are super in the same sense that The Incredibles themselves or Frozone are?

I liked Batman a lot for the same reasons you do. I also liked Spider-Man because he had real-life problems in spite of his accidental abilities. Superman was boring because he was so absurdly powerful. Some of the retconning in Smallville and Superman Returns was pretty cool because they gave him emotional vulnerabilities, demonstrated how absolutely disciplined he has to be all the time to avoid hurting people, and made it possible to identify with him a lot more than the godling he became in the majority of the comics I read as a kid.

I’m not ignoring the fact that super powers place them on an entirely other level than normal humans, I’m saying that in the world created for the movie, there isn’t much of a choice for them. That they are forced to conceal their abilities is internally consistent in that world. I’d like to think we’d do better in real life if we had Supers around, but it’s actually pretty likely we’d just end up with X-Men style registries, pogroms, and medical experimentation.

They don’t deal much with the villain issue because the story isn’t really about that. It’s mostly a personal story between Bob and Buddy. In many comic books the villains are not usually super-powered themselves. Like Koxinga pointed out, one of the most famous of them, Lex Luthor, isn’t super. But the Underminer is not just “a guy in a digging machine,” he obviously has physical attributes that are not normal.

If there aren’t villains who are clearly shown to have super powers, it actually undermines your argument a bit because the implication is that the Supers by and large didn’t use their powers to harm people, but to help people. We don’t know if there was fallout from them going underground. There could have been a period of war, with normals against Super villains. There could have been some clandestine hero work for a while. Frozone’s costume vault indicates that he’s not as “retired” as he says he is. We just don’t know, and it’s rather pointless to speculate.

They weren’t costumed vigilantes. It is strongly implied that the Supers were sponsored by the government. The government guy who comes to the hospital after Bob punches his boss through four walls says, “We appreciate what you did for us in the old days, but we can’t keep helping you like this.” Mr. Incredible is shown working in cooperation with the police, with absolutely no indication that what he is doing is unsanctioned or illegal in any way. The police actively seek out his help in apprehending criminals, and seem displeased when he says that he can’t help them more that night. The expensive car that he has, with advanced technology, is almost certainly not paid for with his money, but the government’s.

It’s obvious that you don’t like the movie, but you’re really reaching for rationalizations here. There just isn’t a whole lot in the movie to justify your negative emotional response.