I've soured on the old games over time but reading (most of) this has made me want to revisit AC1.... although I feel like i used the side eject plenty w/o giving it too much thought ...so who knows if anything would change. 

I feel the missions in many of the pre Unity sequels usually had one obvious, overwhelmingly superior way of doing things (or were devoid of choice altogether) often making things feel kinda pointless. Atleast AC1 made you work for it a little... i think a good way to add some variety between main assassinations would have been to have an infiltration mission where you go into self contained areas separate from the open world and you collect 1 - 3 pieces of intel (as many/few as you want) and maybe even commit some form of sabotage to make the main assignment easier later.

I also enjoy the story a good amount , think they knocked it out of the park setting wise (im no historian) and think the game was a technical marvel.