WHOA. Whoa. Sensin' some Xros Wars hate here. Turn down the haterade. Gonna have to ask you to take a break, step back, think about it for a minute.
...It's a cool idea, but the structure of the previous series make it awkward.
I won't fully defend it as it stands far from the original Digimon Adventure, but...
Xros Wars
Pros: Action (at least in the second arc), Music (whoa, evolution tracks), Beelzebumon, DarkKnightmon, Dorulumon (sooorta), Shoutmon (<3)
Cons: Structure (or rather, lack thereof), Story (rather weak), the invincible Taiki (and Zenjirou + Akari, who are useless), Taiki, Taiki, uh...
Notes: The characters are either extremely forgettable or extremely memorable. Taiki is infallible. Don't like it at all. Yuu's punishment for his wrongdoings wasn't handled as severely as, say, Ken from 02. At least then, you got an entire episode to delve into his past and get to know him better.
What's important to note is that the cons listed are actually Adventure's strongest points, in my opinion. EVERY character was memorable and had their own strengths and weaknesses; they weren't--ahem--perfect in every way. The structure of Adventure was great, always giving a reason to move forward and not exactly knowing what was going to happen--like an adventure, whereas Xros Wars just kinda goes from themed place to themed place. Not to mention, the idea of a tier system (Rookie->Mega) is thrown out/all over the place. It's confusing, and I suppose that can make things pleasant in terms of being unpredictable... or just confusing. The story goes without saying: Adventure rawks it. Apart from a couple good villains (and a bad main villain), Xros Wars isn't too convincing in the story department except for a few notable twists. The hostility between the main characters at first (I'm not really giving much away because it's a Digimon show) was interesting, because there was a bit of a break between the characters in Tamers at first, which didn't last long before they were teamed up, but the three tamers here have their own separate factions. I liked that break from the formula.
So viewing Xros Wars from the comfy seating of the series' foundation, yes, it has failed to reproduce the magic of the original. But looking at its strong points, it's still entertaining, if only in the second arc (Death Generals). It's got more going for it than Savers ever did.
It's also worth waiting 40-something episodes for the fist-fight.
I have my qualms with Xros Wars, though. My main one is that Digimon Adventure had a ton of sacrifices for the Chosen Children. That ***was deep. :x In Xros Wars, nope. They set it up for some sacrifice, and Taiki's, like, "D: No! I can't leave them behind! I know something that just might work! It's a longshot. *works* YAY EVERYONE IS SAVED." So many opportunities for them to queue up
Kanashimi, but NOPE. TAIKI'S TOO DAMN SMART.
Oh, and I guess I should mention the Digimanz themselves. Though the humans are generally the focus of the show, Digimon are a cool factor. As a furry, I'm drawn to those some of those designs and say, "Whoa, that looks cool" or "cute" or whatever, but I'm not much of a giant robot guy, and unfortunately, there is a lot of mixing and matching of designs and such. The aforementioned Xros of Puppetmon with Shoutmon is pretty normal, but the regular Xrosses(sp?)--Shoutmon X2-7--are some Transformers/Voltron ***right there. It's okay, it's so obnoxious that it makes me smile, but it's not something like XV-mon where when you see it, it commands that, "Damn, what a badass." feeling. If Shoutmon had an evolution line where he slowly became more like a dragon, but kept the whole sound element thing, that'd be cool. But nope. No real designs are aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Some of the main Digimon are cool-looking, but they feel so synthetic with their metal bodies--not to mention the penultimate forms of both main Digimon are just golden versions of themselves, they don't feel like separate entities (damn Japanese notion of conformity).
Yet, it's odd because Shoutmon by himself has a personality that I enjoy greatly. Big ego, arrogant, but he's got a heart of gold and wants to be king for the right reasons. The human usually has the personality and the accompanying human just follows suit, but Xros Wars is like, "here, bland human, awesome Digi." Shoutmon also ends up being the comic relief sometimes because of his ego, which I find more endearing than not. He's got a nice design, but it kinda feels like they were afraid to evolve him--like they didn't want to soil the design.
This will help illustrate my point:
I must have a thing for capes and swords and shields all together, 'cause X4K is my favorite Shoutmon Xros. Apart, all the Digimon have cool designs, but together... even as my favorite, it's not terribly appealing to look at. Also, lolol @ the first six seconds. Almost like they needed a buffer to make it fit the 30 minute schedule.
Finally, the music is very memorable. The soundtrack itself is a bit above average--it's nothing spectacular--but those insert songs, my God. So much Koji Wada (Butterfly, The Biggest Dreamer, Fire!), who had only done the opening songs up until now. His voice commands that surging passion that the Xros sequences want you to feel, SO IT WORKS OUT
REAL GOOD. As a fan of Japan's... psyche-up tunes? What would you call 'em. I mean, Sonic games have Crush 40 songs that give you that "this is it! All or nothing!" feel. Anyway, each of the three tamers has an insert song vocalist to represent them, which is super badass. Even DarkKnightmon gets an awesome villain tune. <3
...I think I've said enough about Xros Wars. I can't really think of anything else to note. It's not as bad as you think, but... read your Digimon SparkNotes for the first arc and enjoy watching the second.
Oh, and sorry for the wall of text.