I loved Bleach when it was about Ichigo and Rukia going around town hunting hollows. Those were really interesting stories about life and death and unfinished business; it was a wonderful premise.
As soon as they left the world and went to Soul Society, the series took a dramatic dive in quality. It degenerated into a very standard people-with-special-powers, battles-of-oneupsmanship, train-harder-to-gain-a-new-form series, which normally I do not mind because hey, I read Naruto. My issues are that the pacing of the manga is very slow and it takes way too long for things to happen; a lot of characters wear the same exact thing, which makes it difficult to differentiate; and that Tite Kubo's art, particularly during battles, ends up looking a lot like black smudges than anything more dynamic and detailed. What's worse is that I know he can do much better; I've read Zombie Powder.
I don't mind shounen anime cliches, but Bleach doesn't particularly do them very well.