So it's as fresh as it's ever going to be for me.

I liked Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. I think all of your complaints are perfectly valid, because there was a lot of strangeness in there, but I'd still probably recommend the books to people. I didn't much care for all of the Keats metaphysical stuff, like you, I cared about the War and the Web and such.

I also thought the Pilgrims storyline was boring for the most part, but it took me a while to realize that, because I enjoyed (most of) the backstories that were from Hyperion. I was perfectly fine to read a lot about the Pilgrims in the valley of the Time Tombs, until I kind of thought back and realized they weren't doing anything aside from the occasional crazyness that ended up being irrelevant.

So yeah. I see what you mean and I agree with most of it, but I'd still probably recommend it to my friends that can read fast and move on without wasting too much time on it.

Oh, and I will probably end up reading Endymion, mainly because I picked it up at a used book store for real cheap (there's some water damage). But I'm not sure what Simmons has left to tell in this universe. Sure, it's weird to see all the exotic Ousters and advanced cultures and whatnot, but I don't know that I'll be interested enough. Who knows?