My opinion of QT is that he's really good at making scenes, and not that great at making movies. That is, I love his dialog, and sometimes I think he shoots the most beautiful movies, but he has a tendency to swing and miss on the story. Kill Bill is the notable exception to this, and I think that movie is brilliant (although you really don't need a story to be a revenge flick, so it was already written for him; the filigree is what makes it great). Ingluorious was the most egregious example of QT not being able to get out of his own way to tell a goddam story. That move makes me mad, because it could be so good, but falls so flat on its face.
Fair enough. Part Two is better, but I can see why the brutal obviousness of it could be pretty off putting. But like I said, I like it for the pretty filler, and for me, that's all Kill Bill needed. A movie like Ingluorious, or Django really suffers when you treat subjects that should be treated with respect as cannon fodder, never mind the fact that the stories are just dumb. If you're going to do a revisionist history, at least make it interesting. I completely agree with you about Death Proof. I was soooo bored, but I wanted to see Planet Terror, so I stayed. Otherwise, I think that would've ended up on my shortlist of movies that I've walked out of (and it's a very short list; my tolerance for shitty movies is really high). I would say Death Proof is unarguably Tarantino's worst movie. Even if it was supposed to be recreating the "Grindhouse" feel, you should at least try harder than some 1970's filmmaker who probably had a microscopic budget and little to no talent. Shameful, really.