Hmm, what to say to kinda encourage you onward.. Let's see:
- The style does change with more time. Kubo started off simple enough, but as the time passed a lot of his skill in character design began to shine. (In before "Where are the backgrounds?")
- Story wise, Bleach has good concepts, decent combat, a good bit of humor and moments of complete brilliance which are usually married to lots of buildup and padding. A lot of people give it flak for the pacing with good reason, but the thing with Bleach and these periods of nothing is that for every moment like this, there are individual chapters and outcomes that come seemingly out of the blue and kick massive ass.
- Since you're reading nonstop for upwards of 365 chapters though, you get the best of everything without the agonizing week long waits to only hear that character A did dramatic pose B and used speech of justice #1B, then conclusion.
- Oh, also, please keep in mind that the manga tends to showcase a set group of the entire potential cast, and a lot of the characters who get sidelined are almost always the more awesome seeming ones. Especially Urahara. I fukken love Urahara.
That's all I can really say, it's a good romp once you know what to expect and temper yourself for.