I’m pretty sure ‘dreamies’ is just a short version of ‘dream villager’ so I don’t think the tier list comes into it, except for those people who base their favorites on the tier lists. The tier lists are popular villagers. ‘Dreamies’ are people’s particular favorites.
I disagree that villagers are lacking in this game in particular, and thus is popularity is now based only on looks. But of course the first part is a very subjective judgement, and I accept that they are lacking for you.
I think the popularity list has always been determined by appearance though. (I think even if each villager had completely individualized dialogue it would be)
I’m fairly sure that even in pre-NL games, where the dialogue seems to have had more options, diversity, etc, it was still based on personality, not unique to each villagers, so preferences within a personality type were still based on the look of the villager, not that there is anything wrong with that. And I’m not invalidating preferences either; sometimes when you like the look of the villager, or how they emote, or just something clicks for you, it makes the dialogue work differently/ better.
For example, I don’t think I particularly like the smug personality, but when it is my little graham, I find it much more charming!