Plus, if Amon had truly been given the ability to remove bending, and from the spirits, it would've opened up the question as to why the spirits were wanting to take people's bending away--and I think that could have created some really interesting and worthwhile stories. *sigh* but oh well...

Amon was totally my fav too, until they made it so that he was just a poser bloodbender, and didn't really have a special gift from the spirits. That pissed me off considerably--they kinda ruined his awesomeness at the end there. If they'd just let somebody else have special powers besides the Avatar for a change, that would be so more interesting. Would actually make it so the Avatar really has a proper/equal opponent, which would make any victory all the more meaningful.