Nice review on Zooropa
I agree with most of what you write. I also think it should've remained an EP containing essentially the first half.
Before they recorded Pop, they also recorded the very strange album
Original Soundtracks 1 with Brian Eno and a guest appearance by the late Luciano Pavarotti. They released the album in 1995 under the pseudonym Passengers, so it usually doesn't come up in their discography .. and rightly so, because if you want to listen to the U2 which is farthest removed from anything else they've ever done, that's the album you should listen to. Still, it did chart in Norway and likely other countries with the song "Miss Sarajevo", giving it some attention.
I don't consider it part of their discography because if they had wanted it to be regarded as such, they wouldn't have released it under the name Passengers. Still, it is definetly a curiosity so some people like to mention it. I reviewed it in my own journal if you wanna have a closer look at my thoughts on it.