The show is in big trouble if prectable repetitive flatness is their most defining characteristic.

Heh. One of the things that's baffling me is actually the reverse--they keep talking about how Echo's development is strange! and wrong! and dangerous! but as far as I can tell based on what we've seen, refusing to return to perfect flatness is par for the course (Alpha, Echo, and now Sierra), so what's the big deal?

Problem: if we don't ever see the Dollhouse functioning as it's supposed to function, the malfunctions don't have much impact because to us, they're business as usual.

But of course, other problem: as you say, the functional Dollhouse isn't very interesting, either.