It always bugged me that the soldiers got turned into such monsters and villains. People like Riley want to do the right thing, and while I would have appreciated a redemption arc with the Initiative soldiers, we didn't even get that. They were just bad guys, and I didn't get the feeling that they learned much from their mistakes.

And Buffy is growing up, maybe because she doesn't carry the wounds of canon Buffy. Angel didn't go evil on her, she didn't have to carry the weight of the world on her own, she didn't send her lover to hell.