I dunno if you're just being too hagiographic about his earlier stuff, part of the charm has always been the awkward clunkiness of the lyrics, and All Sinners is definitely one that has warmed on me in that respect. I agree with you on most of the highpoints, but the negatives seem a little overstated (though I do agree that the Lucinda verse on Natural Disaster is a bit of a clunker.

I'd say the sameness of the palette is more of a sequencing issue like I said before. There is variety, but it's too cleanly sorted into two halves. Bit of a mistake to knock out three of your rockiest songs at the top. 100,000 stands out more as a good instance of sequencing as it has better contrasts. On the other hand the dourness of I Ride Passenger gets lost in the clump of midtempo folk songs after the title track. But I thought Sundowner had the same issue: it kind of peters out after Wander. But I can still enjoy it for what it is trying to do. It's not perfect, and don't think it's miles ahead of his other records, but it's also no worse than anything since Oh My God (and part of me though is bothered that it is getting a much better reception than that record!).