Game of Thrones rewatch

I have been working my way through "Game of Thrones" for the past several weeks, at roughly a rate of an episode a day. I'm now halfway through the fifth season. Some thoughts:

• I tend to split the series into three parts: seasons 1-4 adapt the first three books and are generally excellent, albeit not as good as the books. Season 5 adapts books four and five, and adds some new material (notably involving Dorne, but also sending Sansa to marry Ramsay Bolton). For the most part, this season is good, not as good as 1-4, but better than the (fairly poor) books. That said, the new material is notably poor. Seasons 6-8, of course, move beyond the books, and race towards the end. There is a very noticeable drop in quality.
• Varys' storyline makes no sense. He's apparently working "for the good of the Realm", but he's supporting a Targaryan restoration, when the last Targeryan was "the mad king" and the initial heir is Viserys who really is no better. And then, when Daenerys emerges and makes for a fairly good candidate, he promptly jumps ship to support Jon Snow who (a) doesn't want the jobs, (b) isn't in a position to claim it, and (c) is a poor choice anyway.
• Sansa's storyline in season 5 likewise makes no sense. It's entirely out of character for Littlefinger to sell her off to someone about whom he knows so little.
• The Dorne storyline just sucks. No more really needs to be said about it.
• That said, I remain of the opinion that season 5 remains a step above the novels, which sadly drop horribly in quality after the first three. I'm increasingly inclined to recommend that people read those and then consider them to represent the start of the greatest unfinished fantasy epic ever. I'm somewhat doubtful about whether the series will ever see an end, and even more doubtful about the eventual quality of any end that does emerge.
• I think this is the fourth time I've watched the first few seasons (once on Sky, once when I first go the blu-rays, once with LC, and now), and only the second time for the later ones. That's not terrible, given the relative quality of the series.
• I really hate these blu-rays. Not only did I have difficulties with some data they had stored on the PS3, which meant they didn't want to play properly again, but each disc has several minutes of unskippable nonsense that insists on running every time you load it. When I want to sit down to watch an episode, every extra second I have to wait before hitting the starting credits is an imposition, and these disks have too many. But then, the days of physical media are essentially done, so I guess it matters very little really.

I may well have some more thoughts when I get to the end. We'll see.