Call me weird, as I'm sure many people will, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the musical, which I saw for the first time last night on TV. There's a lot to like about it, and some truly great moments, but it just didn't hang together for me, perhaps because it tried to cover such a large swath of history so I felt like many of the characters were two-dimensional.

That being said, I really do like and resonate with most of what you've said here.