I think the current thinking is that the sea people were a symptom more than a cause of the collapse. The few surviving records talk about crop failures and widespread unrest even before the sea people appeared. You had a number of feudal kingdoms teetering on the brink of collapse and the sea people provided a convenient excuse for the rulers so they didn't have to blame themselves.
Exactly. As I understand it the invasions came as a result of a migration crisis, this migration crisis was also a symptom of the collapse, i.e. something else (most likely devastating volcanic eruptions followed by nuclear winder, crop failures, etc.) which made life in Europe really hard, forcing the migration. I imagine these migrants weren’t super welcomed into the more rich Bronze age cultures, otherwise perhaps the migration might have been less violent, and collapse could have been avoided.
