Mike, you commentary is excellent and you see the series for what it is.
It was never meant to be BoB in the Pacific, it is an entirely different story written by different people. The only thing the two share in common are producers and excellent special effects.
The war in the Pacific was so vastly different than in Europe there is no way to tell the same or similar story.
My only complaint is the seeminlgy schizophrenic plot and the fact they tried to compress over 3 years of combat into 10 episodes. The series could easily have been twice that long. As far as the plot goes, I have a feeling that is intentional, not only for brevity, but to help put viewers into the Marines' shoes. They probably had no idea of what what going on either big picture-wise.
I will be watching it the rest of the Summer.