Speaking as someone slightly more on the liking it side than disliking it, I'm not seeing anything negative that you said that wasn't there.

Edit: I think a good portion of the bad things are that Vathara didn't quite realise how bad they were making them, and I actually think that's worse, because if they'd realised it then you could have the relief that the author probably doesn't believe the same as the characters, but when they don't realise it you don't have that.