The moment they started absorbing laser beams in the exact same way the Dalekanium shell is supposed to I thought "god damn it," to be honest. I think the episode took some really positive steps in other ways - I think the hammer horror sort of thing about them removing heads and arms and legs, and one part of a Cyberman being as potentially deadly as the full thing (also explored in The Pandorica Opens when Amy discovers that lone Cyberman head) is actually a really good fit for what the Cybermen are thematically... but the whole thing of making them mega powerful just falls flat for me.
The funny thing is Nightmare in Silver has some dialogue which suggests the opposite - when they're talking about how they're impossible to fight a war against, because every soldier they down, they cannibalize and use to repair themselves - that's great for the Cybermen. That fits. The 'upgrade in progress...' thing, making them invincible to anything in short order, isn't so hot. I wonder, if Doomsday happened again, would four or five Cybermen fall and then would the others all become immune to Dalek guns as Daleks are to Cybermen guns, leading to a stalemate? Ahaha.
In Britain, fifty-something years of British culture just dictates that the Daleks, in particular, are scary. It's just... assimilated. I was born the year that Doctor Who was taken off the air, but I distinctly remember knowing what a Dalek was, despite never seeing the show, growing up. My earliest memory of Daleks in a televisual sense was actually a KitKat ad campaign, where they had the tagline "Have a break, have a KitKat," and the punch line was that the Daleks have a break, and so are rolling around shouting "PEACE AND LOVE" and waving peace flags. Somehow, despite never seeing a Dalek in a dramatic context, I knew what they were, I knew that they screamed Exterminate, and I got the joke.
Anyway... I think they're actually in reality scary for different reasons. The Daleks are meant to be the ultimate expression of that which is different to us. They're the nazis, no doubt, created by a man with memories of the war fresh in mind. They're evil incarnate, and impossibly, terrifyingly powerful.
The Cybermen are really meant to be us. They're meant to be what we can become if we become so desperate, or so greedy, that we throw humanity away. In the classic series, at least, they were also always a bit desperate, struggling, always at the end of their rope. Weirdly, that trait passed to the Daleks for a few years in New Who, as it was constantly the last Dalek(s) in existence struggling to re-establish themselves and scores and scores of Cybermen. Lately, the two have just shifted to occupy this very similar space, and it's a shame.
The episodes weren't particularly good. And stairs aren't much of an issue since they can hover.
