Hard to say, it just felt right to me, the tone was back to something similar to TFA and away from the horrendous attempts at ironic humour that TLJ had (the "Can You Hear Me Now" bit, the lightsaber toss, the "It's salt" bit, the fucking Porgs, the milking scene...)
As dumb an idea though it was, I still kind of like the grandiose madness of bringing Palatine back as the big bad. And I thought the scenes where Rey confronts him, with the audience of Sith watching, were great, the kind of high stakes, overblown melodrama that Star Wars always did so well.
I liked the use of Rey and Ben's psychic link (which admittedly was one of the few things in TLJ that I liked), especially the lightsaber handover.
I thought the resolution of Ben and Han Solo's story was handled beautifully, a really moving moment IMO.
And the part where Lando shows up with half the galaxy genuinely made me want to cheer in the cinema.
All I can say is that I came out of my first viewing feeling great, feeling, "Yeah, that was a Star Wars movie!"
So when everyone hated it, I was genuinely surprised tbh!
The comedic bits were one of the few highlights for me in TLJ. Weird how positive you came out of it. RoS was one of the few movies I've watched where I dislike it during the middle of the runtime. I thought the online reception of it was exaggerated but I came out thinking "I get it now".
Also, the plot points you mentioned I wanted to like when they were shown but they were always a let down. Like the Palpatine fight with the cultists watching was so thematic but the actual fight was so bad. The light saber toss with the psychic link was cool though (even if it did make my eyebrow raise out of my forehead in how odd the rules are for it).