You can't deny the writing isn't awful doeMagic players are one of the most relentlessly negative fandoms on the Earth. This thread is actually pretty chill compared to most places people talk about MTG online and even so every new set is bad and boring and low-power, has a poor draft format, will ruin Standard, etc. etc.
I do think the complaints about energy are unusually off-base. If you play with a mechanic like this just by having exactly one thing you always do and never thinking about it, you are almost by definition playing suboptimally. You pretty much have to engage it either full-throatedly Johnny (by building crazy decks around it) or Spike (by carefully arbitraging the most value possible out of the theoretically-equal energy expenditures) to get the benefit of the mechanic.
Maybe it'll have a proper payoff in Aether Revolt but I'm not holding my breath.