I liked Kendra as well. Back in S2, Buffy was still high-school bubblegum-cute and immature. Kendra showed what the ideal vampire slayer should be, and showed us just how much different Buffy really was.
It was really cute the way Kendra would be like... you have to follow the watchers orders! And buffy was all like... 😛 pfffbt. I do what I wanna when I wanna.
I was sad to see Kendra die, but it showed us that Dru wasn't a doddering weakling anymore... she was all better.
Plus, if Kendra didn't die, we wouldn't have Faith 😀