Yea, that muted ending and furniture of a protagonist didn't do it for me. Never once was he shown to be actually needed by Toranaga and he wasn't even funny to be his pet clown, because they communicated too seldom here. And many important scenes about the protagonist were cut to make time for a parade of side characters.
And too many times it seemed that Toranaga was just plain lucky and adapting, not megaminding everything ten steps ahead. Yea, he was a ruthless liar who surrounded himself by people he could easily manipulate, but he wasn't omniscient to predict all random things. Like, what happened to his son, or his brother betraying him, or what happened to Mariko.
And speaking of Mariko, she was more of a protagonist in this show than ML or Toranaga combined. MVP, but disappointingly way too suicidal.
My favorite character in this drama is not her though, but Yabushige - the most human and entertaining one to watch. He was squirming on the frying pan for the whole series trying to get the most profit, but failed expectedly :).

Anyway, it's still a good drama. Production quality, especially the costumes were great. Too bad they didn't show the epic battle of Sekigahara, but it wasn't in the book, so ok. I'd give it an 8. But old TV series in terms of the plot and characters were still better, imho.