Eleven was just too manic for me, in ways that never quite stopped feeling like a retread of Ten; I also don't think Matt Smith really pulled off the moments that had the best chance to get me in the gut.

I liked Eleven a lot in his early appearances—he was convincingly alien and I liked the mixed, mercurial age of his gawky body and his angle-boned face—but I think he grated on me over time. Too much of his character came to feel defined by impulsiveness and apparent surrealism: the mad man with a box. Twelve floundering irritably through nighttime London and the inside of his own head is not quirky; I'm not even sure how settled he is in himself by the end of the episode, although at least he's sorted his memory (and some basic concepts of socialization) out. I will stop talking until you've seen the episode.

I liked some of the twisty metaplots Moffat put together, but taken individually, many of the episodes felt too much like I was being told to think the Doctor was the awesomest thing ever, instead of being shown cool stories that left me thinking "you know, the Doctor is the awesomest thing ever."
If that makes any sense.

Absolutely. Hearing someone repeat a thing is not sufficient reason to feel it for yourself.