Anyone else feel the dialogue was just generally more believable or interesting before ME3 and futur

What hurts it more is Saren without attacking Eden Prime could simply have been there in the Council Room when the Geth attacked. Got the Council out to "safety" and then stayed there to open the doors with a smuggled in army of Geth or indoctrinated Asari Commandos. All of which could be present thanks to his Specter status and him being one of their best and most respected agents.

Really when you put any sort of logic to it the entire Mass Effect 1 game is renders pointlessly stupid and convoluted. Because everything Saren would need to lead an assault on the Citadel to allow Sovereign to activate the citadel was in his hands since the start. 

I think there were 2 main issues with the dialogue in ME3 (both of which have probably been mentioned in this thread).

1) It was under the weight of all the choices made prior to the game ever coming out. As such, the writers had to bland out the effects of those choices in the dialogue. Sadly, this also probably meant less variation than they would have liked, in response to Shep's responses. Likely, much of this dialogue may never have been experiences, sans those choices, depending on how the game was structured.

2) Auto-dialogue/few choices. I feel this was probably a result of point #1, but the dialogue choices themselves were less varied. Even in ME1, if you choose to not save the Council, there's a nuance between "focus on saving humans" vs "let the Council die." Even if the choice was the same, it FELT different, and that was lost in ME3, even if it was mere illusion of nuance.

Yeah except following this argument leads to speculation as to just how many commandos Benezia had following her. Given Matriarchs aren't exactly warlords I would think not enough to completely take over the Citadel or at least the Presidium which is what you'd have to do to ensure you have enough time to keep the arms open and then closed while Sovereign does his thing. The successful plan wouldn't be to just hole up in the tower, it'd be spreading your force everywhere and forcing CSec to divide to stop you. Anyway this wouldn't get us anywhere as there's no hard data one way or another. The other softer argument would be, Saren had geth before he had Benezia. If you had an army would you not use it?

To the question of sneaking in geth, it's possible the Citadel had better scanning abilities then Noveria. Of course, later a geth can literally walk onto the Citadel with nary a eyebrow raised so I'll admit this is all a bit unstable. Still I'd probably chalk it up to numbers again. A crate or two may be smuggled in but not enough to do what Saren needs done. It could've also been an order from Sovereign. Even a handful of geth parts are dangerous because when active they hack into systems and build more of themselves really quickly by cannibalizing existing resources. That would've been fine on Noveria but we know Sovereign doesn't think much of the geth. Allowing them to do that to the Citadel may have been an affront. It's weird but who knows what offends giant robot cuttlefish?

None of what you say about the Reapers is false, but that still leaves us with "Sovereign needs to get to the Citadel" and again the problem isn't that it doesn't realize it, it's how to do it. Bum rushing it is out. So it needs to be sneaky. Could it come up with a better plan? Possibly. In later games we get "Reaper artifacts" that indoctrinate on their own. If it could build trinkets like that, it could've just sent them to the council as gifts and wait for them to turn and then order the Citadel open for the "great rebirth". Though there's a chance someone would realize the Council was getting screwed with (unlikely though it may be) and stop it before it happens, and now the marks would have Reaper tech to study and would know more than they should, with Sovereign still not any closer to finishing his mission. Anyway it sounds interesting, but again, that wouldn't be a game. And like Saren and the geth, if a Spectre wandered in who had the skills and authority Saren did, why wouldn't you use him? Finally, assuming "beyond our comprehension" automatically means omniscient is a tad arrogant an assumption about human perception. We're hilariously limited in what we can perceive and understand, relative to the universe. Frankly, anything that can intrinsically grasp the concept of "2", the actual idea, not a symbolic representation of it is far beyond our comprehension, even if that's the only thing it can do.

As to the Conduit, it was a trade-off. I can agree a secret area would've been logical and made it more significant to the plot, but on the other hand we had some nice foreshadowing with the relay monument. Plot logic suffered but a plot device was strengthened in a literary sense. I don't usually argue literary stuff because the value of it is so subjective and I prefer the logic of facts, but we can at least acknowledge it. As to the rest, like I said, the audience can typically allow the writers a sizable blunder or two at the start. But subsequent blunders will get called out increasingly harshly, and the existence of the original blunder does not justify them. "It was flawed all along" may be true but it's no excuse to keep making mistakes.

It's even rarer that I would agree with him. In fact I might've deemed it impossible before now. But wonders never cease I gues.

I disagree on the foreshadowing claim. I think that's a case of retrospective analysis. I highly recommend Babylon 5 as an example of how actual foreshadowing is done for an arc like this (and fittingly as the Reaper arc is very similar to the Shadow War in B5). What you say also assumes the game to be won was Shepard's life. Not so. The fate of the galaxy is what we've always been playing for. Pro-enders will argue that we did win, with every option other than refuse. And even the most die hard anti-enders will say Shepard's survival is not a critical demand for them. So there goes that idea. The problem was that even though you can say we technically won, they did their damnedest to make sure it didn't feel like we did- because at the end of the road, the holokid comes down from on high (I suppose I should be grateful for that space elevator as opposed to the visual of the holokid literally descending to us like some deity) and just hands us some Pyrrhic choices. Not really making you feel like busting out the champagne, is it? As to organics and synthetics, who are you going to believe? The one little side mission AI in the first game most people forgot about and some missed entirely (I know I did my first playthrough) or the major sideplot hammered at you in all three games that ends in peace as the most idealized choice?

The notion that "organics must control or destroy synthetics" is bullshit, because it ignores the agency of both. Organics are not perpetual slavers. We use tools, that's our defining feature- at least human-like life does. It'd be nice if we still had some examples of entirely different life (rachni, thorian) to see how they'd handle things. Now you got me wondering if that aspect was deliberately pushed aside to make way for this nonsense. But I digress. Humanoids make tools. But when those tools take on a life of their own, when sapient AI is born the question is not "keep or destroy" the tool. It's about recognizing the sapience, unlike our own but sapience nonetheless and according it equal moral value to our own. Those that wish to destroy or control don't do that. They don't recognize the sapience, it's either get the tool back under control or destroy it because it's not doing what it's supposed to. But to say that all organics will destroy or control is to deny that can choose otherwise. Ridiculous. They may as well be machines at that point. Same thing with synthetics. It may be even worse for them, since they apparently only get one choice- kill all humans. So where's their sapience again? The holokid's assertion renders the exploration of this issue philosophically moot. To make a whole series about organics vs synthetics only to say they're the fundamentally the same thing, only fighting because "reasons" is insultingly inane. But I think got sidetracked. I don't think they were planning this from the start, because of how haphazardly everything fits together and because frankly, I have a hard time imagining how someone could plan something that leads to conclusion. I think writing themselves into a corner and coming up with a last minute "art" asspull that'd get laughed out of Philosophy 101 actually reflects better on the writers than the alternative, that for seven years, they actually thought this was a good idea.

Thanks for the interesting points!  I actually failed to note that nuance of difference regarding the Council.  However, I also generated far more saves from ME1 than I ported to ME2, even less that matriculated to ME3 as a result of my feelings on the endings.  Incidentally, I think Rannock and Tuchanka were probably the most satisfying, in terms of dialogue and choices.  Beyond those two particular missions, I struggle to recall "meaningful" choices that actually made me feel good about the flow of the game and the ramifications of those choices.  

But that's the crux of it, "feeling."  It was an old argument back in the ME1 days as well, as I distinctly recall.  Back then, one of the major bones of contention of one of my friends was the utter lack of meaningful repercussions to saving/killing the Rachni Queen.  One could argue whether that resulted in substantial change in the subsequent games, beyond just a symbolic one.  Myself, I always saved her, so I wouldn't be a good authority on this particular nuance.

Eh a simple explanation (excuse) is that Saren over stepped Sovereign's original intent.  Beacon could have info on Reaper's extracted. So simply activate beacon and blow it up to hide the evidence. But Saren took it a step to far. Rather then a precision attack to get the Beacon who's existence wasn't widely know. And was kept very low key. Saren attempted to do what he usually does and remove all possible witnesses. That extra step alerted more people to the Geth threat and allowed Shepard time to respond and once Shepard exposed Saren to Council. Sovereign and him had no choice but to find Conduit to allow them back door entry to Citadel.

Don't see the ending as a debacle. Least as long as you payed attention to events and context of said events.

Again that is Saren's motivation not Sovereign's.

We don't know when the recording was actually taken. It could have been post Eden Prime or on Eden Prime. It was also a speech recorded by a Geth. Odds are it was a speech to the Geth to keep them happy.

Either way the Conduit wasn't really needed by Sovereign. Least not originally. How ever it was the way the Protheans back doored the Citadel right under their collective Reaper noses. Sovereign would be interested in finding it simply so it doesn't happen again. Saren in his over zealous nature to prove how useful organics can be to avoid termination. Takes it a step to far and sees the Counduit as a necessary step towards bringing Reapers back.  But again his general nature of kill anyone who might possibly know something asserted it self. He over stepped what was needed and that led Shepard to finding out about it. Once he is exposed he now has to use the Conduit to get on the Citadel.

Mass Effect 2 was still written with the idea of the player telling their own story. Mass Effect 3 tried too hard to force a character on the blank slate of Shepard.

Shepard was never a blank slate. That was true right from ME1.

I'm thankful for that as well, as true blank slate protagonists are never anything but boring. Part of the problem with the Inquisitor in DA:I arguably is that the character has a very bare bones backstory, and that in turn ensured that he or she didn't have much of a personality.

Unless he pieced together enough information that this "conduit" was somehow used to sabotage the Citadel and/or the Keepers. Find out what happened, and you can work your way towards the solution.

If you start at the Citadel...okay where on the Citadel? The Keepers? The controls for the relay? The relay itself? What if Saren showed up in the Council room and started fiddling with the Control arms as Soveriegn blitzes teh Citadel in a surprise attack, only to find the relay itself has malfunctioned.

Saren: So, boss, I closed up the Citadel and shut down the relays for you, but I just blew my cover and I'm pinned in the Council Chamber by C-Sec. How long until you can send in the cavalry?

Sovereign: ...it's not working...

Saren: Say again?" *gunfire* That sounded like you said it's not working. I know you didn't say it's not working because I'M FIGHTING HALF OF C-SEC HERE BY MYSELF! Sooner or later, they're going to get in here, and when that happens it's just a matter of time until they open up the network again. We're both just lucky they haven't brought in another Spectre yet!

Sovereign: I SAID "it's not working" now shut up and let me concentrate" *muttering as Sovereign starts running a diagnostic on the Citadel

Saren: And I was two days til retirement...

All the controls that Saren was messing with did was close the Citadel and lock out the relay network.  Sovereign had to go in and manually open the relay (which is why it was making out with the Citadel during the battle)

Now imagine if the Protheans had done something to the Citadel itself to keep the dark space relay from opening, rather than messing with the Keepers. At the time you speak of, neither Saren nor Sovereign knew what was wrong.

Yup. Irony.
Obviously Sovereign did not have to manually start the process... because in past cycles, the keepers started it from the Citadel... so... another plot hole exists... why couldn't Saren just do what some dumb keeper had done every cycle prior to this one?  If, in past cycles, a Reaper was needed to open the relay, every cycle would have faced the problem of meeting the Citadel forces head on regardless of the keepers.  There is no indication that whatever the keepers did to respond to the signal involved "softening" the Citadel defences so Sovereign could enter to manually open the relay.  If that was the case, then Saren should have been able to do that just as easily as the keepers instead.