The New Space Opera 2

The introduction to this anthology says "The true heart of science fiction has always been the space-opera story: the thrilling adventure tale of powerful rocket ships, dashing heroes, and far frontiers", but the editors seem to have forgotten that when it came time to choose the contents. I feel a story needs an interesting (and preferably likable) protagonist who makes tough choices and achieves his goal by virtue of moral courage, skill and/or wit. In addition, a science fiction story needs to be plausible other than in its fictional elements; for instance, inventing a Telepathy Machine might help you with your relationships, but it's not automatically going to get you elected President--the author had better show his protagonist learning to persuade, cajole, make deals and get votes, instead of suddenly changing from Nerd Boy to World Leader merely through putting on a hat with wires and lights. And space opera ought to have space ships, preferably in fleets, with a big special effects battle scene somewhere. What we actually get is:

• Utriusque Cosmi (Robert Charles Wilson): the protagonist makes essentially one important decision, and the whole tale happens after that; we don't really see her tension over making the choice.
• The Island (Peter Watts): The protagonist doesn't seem to know why she's working, so why should I care? I skipped the second half of this.
• Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance (John Kessel): A decent story, except built with a completely implausible MacGuffin.
• To Go Boldly (Cory Doctorow): okay, this was a fun story, although it's a bit of a stretch to call it "space opera".
• The Lost Princess Man (John Barnes): Another good story, certainly science fiction, but not space opera.
• Defect (Kristine Kathryn Rusch): This was a "spy comes in from the cold" story, and the protagonist's son had a sudden unexplained change towards the end. It didn't seem complete; it felt more like the introduction to a novel.
• To Raise a Mutiny Betwixt Yourselves (Jay Lake): Not sure which character was intended to be the protagonist. Didn't bother finishing this.
• Shell Game (Neal Asher): I imagine the protagonist was going to develop a goal eventually but I gave up before finding out what it was.
• Punctuality (Garth Nix): This is the nadir of the anthology thus far. There are two characters, neither of whom has a goal, makes a decision or overcomes an obstacle; further, the Big Dumb Object is implausible and the results of using it qualify you to be a traffic controller, not Emperor despite what the author seems to think. I can't call this a story and if I could, I wouldn't call it science fiction.
• Inevitable (Sean Williams): the author doesn't seem to have made up his mind which of his two characters is the protagonist; however, it was at least interesting enough to finish.
• Join the Navy and See the Worlds (Bruce Sterling): Interesting although I wouldn't call it "space opera".
• Fearless Space Pirates of the Outer Rings (Bill Willingham): Finally something that actually belongs in this anthology!

That's as much of this as I can take right now. Elizabeth Moon, John Scalzi and Mike Resnick are among the remaining authors, so hopefully things will improve.