I think that Django presents some very interesting characters, and the whole thing is one big recursive metaphor anyway, so the story rides backseat to the actors carrying out the story.
Yeah, pretty much all Tarantino movies are characters and not stories. The problem is that the characters do things just so that they have an opportunity to make witty dialog that would only work in that one specific circumstance. Tarantino knows how to make things pretty, knows how to write a great scene, knows how to get 100% out of his actors, but knows jack shit about how to put a functional story together (probably doesn't care, I suppose, because why would he when his shtick has been making him so much money for so long?). Django is so bad it's not even worth talking about (again, from a story perspective; there a lots of other things I love about QT). Same goes for Ingluorious (possibly even worse--at least I can still enjoy Django; IB was so flawed that it gets in the way of the good things that are in it). My personal favorite is Kill Bill, but in that case, he didn't really need to write a story, because revenge stories kinda write themselves.
Setting falls under making things pretty. If you're familiar with the work of Sergio Leone, you'll recognize that QT has cribbed his style at pretty much every opportunity, and nowhere is that more true than in Django, given that it's a Western. Picking the place is one thing, but not everyone can make a beautiful place look beautiful on film.
That and his frat-boy David Lynch aesthetic. you'll recognize that QT has cribbed his style at pretty much every opportunity,