I personally liked that they actually added something new (sort of). I feel like one of the many things the PT did wrong was not adding any new abilities. Freaking out about Kylo stopping a laser blast is to me like freaking out over Palpatine using Force lightning because it wasn’t in ANH.
When the Force is treated as a fixed set of super-powers it looses it’s sense of magic. You should keep wondering what else it might be capable of.
For the most part, I agree. When he did it, my first reaction was “whoa, crazy” not “ugh, stupid” so it seemed decent to me. Plus it sets up the later scene where he fails to stop another bolt.
Most of us liked TFA, some of us didn’t.