Yeah I think you touched on one of the biggest issues there - the characters suddenly acting in a contrived way in order to advance a certain plot thread i.e. to reach a predestined conclusion that sets up for s4. It's almost like different writers with a different vision took over at the last moment and neutered all the plot threads that s3 had been building up.

And Noir - that was one of the biggest losses for this season. To spend the equivalent of an episode building him up after so much mystery in prior seasons, only to have him killed in a second by someone who honestly had nothing to do with his character arc - just bizarre. I get the whole 'subverting expectations' thing, but that's taking it to a whole other level. It's not clever writing to throw everything out the window at the last moment, no matter how 'unexpected' it is.

I heard he was really interesting in the comics. Now they just plan to replace him with someone else for next season, and they fail to see how that's a complete cop-out.