Well, you're probably right with a lot of that, but my expectations were kind of lowered going into this season, so it's easy to succeed them. Generally speaking, I'm a big believer in managing expectations regarding all things.
Well, we all have different levels of expectation.
For me, there's a few rules:
1. A piece of art sets its own expectation. I don't get annoyed with trash films, and sometimes I really can enjoy a substandard film (from a critical perspective) if it is true to what it promised and was going for. But it does mean that if something sets a high expectation for itself (through marketing, or through exceptional quality through much of it), then if it drops the ball, I will be critical of it. It didn't deliver what it promised.
2. While I can read in a lot of shit into a story, that's not my job to make excuses for the writer. A piece of art's quality is not based on its aspirations but on its delivery. Lots of people have great ideas, few can deliver on them. There's a lot of stuff that one can read into this episode, make certain connections -- but to me, if the episode ITSELF does not make those connections, then it has failed to do the job. I can see that some people read a lot of subtext into the story to make it palatable for them, but even when I'm aware of it, either the show actually tied that stuff in directly or it failed to.
3. A refusal to tell the story in the amount of space it needs to be adequately told is a failure. In this case, some of the blame is due to the fact that they could not honor all the storylines that were set in place / manage all the dramatic beats necessary to really create something exceptional. However, that was the showrunners deciding they would rather rush things through and not properly managing the time needed to deliver, they don't get a pass just because they couldn't deliver everything in the time frame. It's that way for anything, even if it's not a story at all but a software project, etc. HBO is making a lot of money on this show and I'm sure would give whatever was required.
In the end, once the show is no longer airing, all you have are rewatches, and the show is in final form forever. So you want to make sure it's done right. Because that's all future generations will see.
4. It's a work of art. I need to have an emotional response to it -- not necessarily surface emotion, but some deep "in the gut" pervasive response. The best art IMO does that, it makes you feel something. All these kinds of discrepancies in logic that take one out of the show / make the characters not feel real, or realizations that you do not experience in the moment while actually watching the show, means the piece of art is not generating the depth of connection that it should.
I'll reiterate I will probably read the books, now, though -- if GRRM ever finishes them. Because I am far more confident the storylines will get the time and space and seriousness they need to actually find decent closure, versus the primetime TV version.