I just watched TLA and LOK within the last two weeks or so for the first time. These are just my thoughts. Some of them I've discussed with
@yeahisaidit already. I read through this whole thread.
I feel like the writers struggled with finding that happy medium between making Korra a bad ass and her villains a bad ass, simultaneously. Subsequently, she took a lot of prolonged L's and the ultimate payoff or catharsis didn't really work for me. She would get sonned even in the Avatar state by regular benders. I really don't think the comparisons are fair between Aang and Korra -- being that Aang was only a child and had a year to learn three elements and Korra was an adult (for the most part). With that being said, Aang would try to avoid a fight, but if he went Avatar state it was
(outside of the Azula fiasco). Korra, while being probably the most powerful/talented Avatar we've seen also comes off as being the worst we've seen. Like, there's this huge chasm that isn't effectively explained between what she can do physically, what we know the Avatar state entails from previous iterations, even in a child, and what happens to her (regardless of the spirit world stuff). It's akin to a WWE champion coming out every Raw and losing to "put over" the competition, but still remaining the champion.
I also think the writers did a HUGE, HUGE disservice to Korra by getting rid of her connections to previous Avatars. I'm talking about as a fan of the show and not Korra herself. I mean entertainment value. That is one of the coolest components of the Avatar mythos. It's not a coincidence that the episodes with Wan were some of the best in LOK. Most of the moments I was really like
in TLA were with past Avatars. When Roku channeled through Aang in the temple. When Kyoshi created the island and so on. Maybe they were tired of coming up with backstories, but I really don't think it was a good idea.
I do think the fights in LOK were superior to TLA. They simply had more moving parts and did cooler stuff. I also liked the more adult themed content of LOK over TLA. Overall, I enjoyed TLA more. It had a little bit more "magic" than LOK and Aang wasn't nerfed to comical levels in the Avatar state.