captainsolo said:
And this lack of nearly anything somehow gives it the pretense of "importance"?

I think its "importance" is supposed to stem from the dilemmas, "social experiments" and the characters acting out different viewpoints on the end justifying means, holding to principles, or issues of human morality.

But in my opinion, it failed for doing this in a way too convenient, contrived matter.

A boat with citizens and convicts (and we're talking about Gotham here).
The citizens are represented by a loud-mouthed unpleasant guy who has a justified pragmatic point - but then pulls out due to "conscience" at the last moment.
The most decisive and intimidating among the bad motherfuckers in orange suits, turns out to be an awesome guy with moral principles.

So... contrary to what the Joker said, "humanity" doesn't get at each other's throats when the chips are down!!
But... it could've very easily.

So then apparently all the patients are safely evacuated from the hospital, that's nice.

The dialogue betwen Two-Face and Oldman at the end seems way too contrived and artificial - Dent basically just wants to kill people, has gone completely unreasonable, and avoids arguments in a defensive manner.
Oldman: "Just leave my son in peace!"
Dent: "Oh, I will. If the coin turns out right."

*yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn*

I think that's it really, it did nicely by taking several philosophical (or maybe political) issues and compounding them in one plot line, but most of the time, it either beat your over the head with the obvious simplicity of its dialogue, or failed to hit the head by taking a way too convenient approach.
Sometimes it's good when an issue is just raised, and played out in a scenario - it gives certain arguments or imagined scenarios a shape, it becomes easy to reference it and immediately explain what you mean by something, and that's cool.
But that has less to do with the actual movie quality.

WHY DIDN'T THE JOKER'S GOONS HAVE FIREARMS???! WHERE DID BATMAN COME FROM?!