I had no problem with Finn bugging out. As a sanitation worker it would seem to make sense that he would panic on his first real action, especially given they were essentially slaughtering innocents. Did it seem a bit weird at first having it not explained until 3/4 of the way through the movie? Yes, but do we need every plot point spoon-fed to us?
Honestly, this reads like someone making an excuse for poor storytelling. It isn't about a plot point being "spoon-fed to us", it's about being able to properly understand a character so their motivations are more clear. Someone might respond, "This isn't [insert fancy, high-brow movie title here]!" No, but that isn't an excuse to ignore basic tenets of storytelling. Someone might say, "I think your expectations are a bit too high", and I might agree with that, but when the story was written by J.J Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan (the latter being the co-writer of Episode V, Episode VI and Raiders of the Lost Ark), I'm far less likely to give seasoned writers a pass.
As it stands, the only motivation presented to the viewer was, "because the script needs me to be a good guy", and if this wasn't Star Wars, no one would accept that shit.
No problem with Finn in the lightsaber fight. He was a trained stormtrooper.
That's the exact reason why I thought it looked weird. Why would they train Stormtroopers in sword fighting when they are typically shown using ranged weapons (blasters)? We only see a single Stormtrooper shown using a melee weapon, and that happened to be the one that Finn fought. Although, that Stormtrooper was kind of interesting... he seemed to have a shield too, so he was sort of a "Stormknight"?
No problem with Rey during the Kylo Ren fight. Leia was less force-powerful than Luke, so it makes sense that her son is less powerful than his daughter even though she isn't trained.
I don't think anyone has a problem with her being more powerful in The Force. The problem comes from how she just seems to know how to use it for no apparent reason. She pulls off a no-handed Jedi mind trick when she only found out that The Force is real shortly before that.
Also, I assume that Luke is Rey's father, but we don't really know. It does make sense that Luke would need to hide her a she'd become a target given her parentage, but we'll just have to wait for Episode 8 or 9 to find out for sure.
Not too concerned about the politics.
After the prequels, I think everyone is overjoyed at the lack of politics. Honestly, I was actually quite happy at the beginning crawl as it was simple and gave you the basics that you needed to know.
EDIT:
interesting perspective from a hard-core SW nerd who actually liked the prequels
I actually find it interesting that even with all of my complaining, I didn't care that the plot felt "recycled".
Actually, I do have a complaint about the Star Killer, and it has nothing to do with the plot. It has to do with the design of the weapon itself. From how they made it sound, the Star Killer absorbs the star's energy, which should effectively kill the star. So... how do they plan to keep firing this weapon that doesn't have a reusable power source?
Although, I think that guy looked at the whole "sucking up a star" a bit too literally. I took the process as using the star's super-heated molecules in an endothermic reaction to provide power for the weapon. The general does reference that the batteries have failed when talking to the leader, so you would assume that they're storing the energy throughout the absorption process, and then firing it once they've pulled in enough.