That's precisely what I don't like about the BW series. It's too new. The music alternates between boinky, stupid cartoon music (that would be bad even to a two-year-old) and a rap/hip-hop type thing, and the so-called battles lack drama such and are so mind-numbingly boring that my attention literally wanders and I have to focus to keep watching. The new series lacks suspense, it's that simple; like you said, some elements were kept from the original series throughout AG and DP, and THAT'S what made them so great. With BW, no such luck.
However, two things are keeping me going for this saga.
The first is Team Rocket. They've changed. Considerably. They seem more dark, more formal, more... military I guess you could call it. And the Trio specifically seems to have been given an upgrade to badassness as was seen in Pokémon Emergency! before Ash and Co. regularly started whupping them at every available opportunity. This might seem out of the blue, but I think it makes perfect sense because, with indirect help from the Trio, Ash and Co. have taken down Team Magma, Team Aqua, and Team Galactic, and now Team Rocket is taking their operations on the offensive and pushing their sphere of influence further outwards. I admit I'm a little biased because I'm all in favor of an attempted Team Rocket takeover, so maybe I'm not the best person to ask. But I'm really looking forward to seeing what this will develop into later.
The second thing keeping me going is the reappearance of either Misty, May, Dawn, Tracey, or Brock. To me, Iris and Cilian are bland characters, uninspired and uninteresting. And they annoy me for different reasons.
But then again, this is all my less than humble opinion.
