I have to say Doyung8's rant was the most logical thing I have read on here in a while. The movie as a whole satisfied me, even mores than TDK. As someone who has studied 'audience engagement', this more than touched on the requisites of that subject. From the story arc, through the conflict, the pacing, the reasoning, the climax and the conclusion, it left me more happy and at peace than TDK did. The Joker played an amazing job and noone will ever top Ledger's Joker cuz the character was so eccentric to begin with. Noone will ever compare. Comparing Bane to Joker is 2 completely different things and I guarantee that should there ever be a reboot with Bane or any other tough guy character, it will be measured against Hardy's Bane (and will probably fail to live up to it just because of how masterfully this was done)
And for those that said there wasn't enough Bane, I thought it had just enough it, enough for us to show us his power and command. Like I said in an earlier post, his presence spreads far beyond his screentime, and you felt like Gotham was his even if he wasn't even in the shot or in the scene at all. He was just a 'henchman' after all. If you're craving for more fight scenes between Bats and Bane then you should probably stick to The Incredible Hulk ( bw him and Abomination) or the Avengers. This movie actually required some intellect, emotional investment and personal relation with the characters. Something that I feel the Avengers, as enjoyable as it was, wasn't nearly as successful in drawing from their audiences.
This movie left me perfectly satisfied. Happy, not wanting more, and completely at peace, something I can't say for 95% of multi-film franchises out there ever