What Went Wrong With "The Dark Knight Rises"

As I was watching "The Dark Knight Rises" I had a painful memory come back to me: Spider-Man 3 (the movie that never should have been). The third Spider-Man movie took the worst parts of the previous films and showcased it. Christopher Nolan's Batman 3 has made the same mistake. I'm guessing it'll have the worst DVD sales of the whole series. By the end of the film I told myself, "The only reason anyone should watch this movie is to find out what Nolan did with his Batman." Other than that, there's not many redeeming qualities to go around. Here are the issues I have with the Dark Knight Rises:

1. Where's Batman? - for a Batman movie, there sure wasn't a lot of him in the film. And the places he was in were formulaic (I'm here to save you Catwoman!), forced (I need to fight Bane in hand to hand combat and lose!), and unnecessary (why pumble Bane with a bat-plane when i can use my fists!)
2. Disappointing plot - The "big reason" for Bane's mask was super-lame. The pit where Bruce is put in clearly acts as a more of a metaphor than a reality that makes any sense. The Batman Begins-esque "twist" at the end didn't carry the devastation it should have. And the list goes on and on
3. Too over the top - What made "Dark Knight" awesome was that it depicted what it would be like if Batman existed and lived in Chicago (when you think about it). It was totally cool! When we get to "Rises" we find a nuclear bomb in a "siege-warfare" type city with underground cops (literally and figuratively). We find that somehow Alfred knows by happenstance deep and dark secrets about Bane's past as if this is common knowledge. It's all a little too over-the-top. 
4. Emotion when there's none - By the third Alfred-to-Bruce heart-to-heart monologue I was like "enough already!" Each monologue was great, but with 3+ together it was too much. The love connection between Bruce and lady-friend was randomly fast and forced.
5. Character motivations - Bruce sits around and does nothing for 8 years waiting for bad guys to come? I don't buy it. At the end of Dark Knight he's clearly up for the challenge of taking the murder charge. At the beginning of Rises he's turned out to be a wuss for 8 years. It's bogus. And debilitating for his character and his strength.  

What would have been better: bring in bane early as an assassin (not a terrorist) to kill bruce wayne in his prime as batman. bring in talia early. Enter lazurus pits in the middle east with the return of rahz al guhl.