I completely agree with your analysis. It's really frustrating, because the show occasionally remembers that Elsa from the film is both loving and incredibly powerful, but then forgets that it knows that and goes back to focusing on its own idea of Elsa, this anxious, hand-wringing Elsa, as though her arc in the film was only to become depressingly co-dependent on Anna. And on the one hand, I think they're doing it to parallel her story and Emma's, about coming to terms with their magic; on the other hand it's terribly misguided and squanders a really interesting character.

I could not agree more. You can find pictures on Tumblr of the frankly amazing outfits cosplayers spend months working on, and then you see the crap they throw together for the characters on this show. And then you weep.