Haha, I think we've already pretty much hashed out what irritated me about the series so far in our earlier conversation but yeah pretty much everything you've said here.

It just feels VERY strongly like the writing of the cast is in different hands now, hands that aren't used to handling these characters and don't understand them and maybe even don't like them. AtlA was cheesy as heck but at least the characterization of its cast was fairly consistent. Korra season 2 is just... ??????