Right, so he has cool powers and a cool costume and you can relate. Well, I guess that's the same reason most Carol fans like her.
I'm totally being a bit biased here, but let me chill lol
I suppose what I'm looking for is something like a great Miles moment. Like, if any of us were asked why Doom is such a boss, we could drop 90 scans where people would be like "damn."
Peter Parker has loads of scans like that too, where he's just being so damn heroic it can't *not* inspire you. And as much as many people see Superman as bland (sorry Reigun - if it's any consolation, I liked him well enough since the Mxyzptlk episode of Superman TAS), he has plenty of moments that are the same.
Conversely, while Miles has certainly not been around very long, the best I've ever heard about him is how he occasionally makes a good Peter Parker impression. I don't hate on that since I love whenever Terry put on his Bruce impression on occasion back in Batman Begins. But that was more of a "student imitating his master" thing that I loved.
Anyways, I'm personally unconvinced that Miles is anything but bland. And yes, I tried reading USM w/ Miles in the past. You just never hear "oh, this cool shit happened in this week's issue of USM with Miles!" I could even see reasoning for liking Otto in Superior Spider-Man. Like, I didn't read the whole run, but the impressions were so good that I had to check out certain issues.
Long, silly rant. But I guess I don't have to like Miles. You guys have your reasons, and so that's fine. I respect your tastes and opinions.
I mean you're still comparing heroes with decades worth of material to a hero who has what? A year and some change worht of material? Even Superior spiderman who is basically the amalgamation of two characters who have decades of writing behind them to shape how Superior would be. If Peter was a new hero and some villain took over his body it wouldn't have that same impact. People like Superior because of how long they've known Peter and know the kind of hero he is and Superior flips it giving you a fresh perspective without changing the actual Peter. But again at the very core of it, you're still ultimately arguing time.
I started reading Spiderman when I was kid and decided to start from 001, I found it boring and it didn't have any moments of "Oh man this character is awesome!". It wasn't until several upon several upon several arcs later that I started becoming a fan (that and had my friends telling me of much more recent Spiderman shenanigans and letting me borrow their issues).
You kind of say it yourself, people find Superman bland but there are moments of awesomeness. Those moments are
only there because his character has been around long enough to have those moments. Peter has those moments of being so damn heroic specifically because of how long he's been around. People levy the same argument against Ms. Marvel, she's only been around for what 6 months but people are expecting her to be as deep and well rounded as characters who have been around for 10+ years. It's a completely unrealistic expectation.
When new characters are introduced, you enjoy their series for their adventure(s) and look forward to their character being developed. Established characters, you look forward to their adventure and how that adventure will affect their established character. Unfortunately way too many people expect brand new heroes to have these well established characteristics that only come with time, and because of that new comic book heroes
rarely and end up being killed off or flat out forgotten by everyone. Not a sleight at you, but comicbook character development is a completely different thing than novels or movies. Nobody read the first 30 issues of Batman and crowned him top 10 hero of all time. Hell if you ask people what are the best Batman/Superman/Spiderman/Wolverine/<insert favorite here> stories that show you what the character is all about, vast majority of people aren't even going to mention the heroes first 40 issues outside of "Read this to learn how he got his powers/abilities".
Also, when Batman Beyond first came out, Terry was hella bland in all aspects. As the show (and subsequent comics) went on his character was steadily develeoped. What was once some random kid in a high tech suit became an actual developed character with his own issues, defects, problems, drives, passions. With that stated, I still think Terry is boring though.