Thank you for sharing. We also felt like the food in the MDR was lackluster on our Eurodam cruise in September. We didn't see much on the menus that looked super appetizing and only ended up going on gala nights. Those services seemed rushed and the food was fine, but nothing to write home about with the exception of a coconut torte which I really liked. I, too, really didn't care for ordering everything at once. I felt each course was just a box being checked off quickly. We ended up eating in the Lido for dinner several nights as we felt we might as well get a variety of food then do a dinner service that we were not really enjoying. We did do three nights at specialty restaurants and felt that the service in those was excellent, and the food was also very good. I would put our Nami Sushi dinners over our Pinnacle Grill dinner, but we enjoyed both.
I think that we feel similar to you that we will do HAL when the price/itinerary is right. We got a great rate on our upcoming Thanksgiving cruise on Koningsdam, and we are prepared for what to expect. We are not much into production shows and are early birds, so we do pretty well with the HAL entertainment. I do wish they had some more live music during the day though.