I was watching Eva on Adult Swim as a young lad, same with FLCL, so all the themes of it really hit me right where it hurt and made me appreciate Shinji all the more for it.

The movies were absolutely terrible, unless you hated Eva to begin with. The best example of that is the fight against Zeruel. The original was played out with absolute horror, that became more and more pronounced as it went on. While the Rebuild version is awesome with badass declarations and kickass moves, where the only horror is them saying "oh but this halo that formed could totally end the world totally."

Another good example is his complete sidelining of Asuka for Mari, which was clearly and completely done just out of his personal hate of people fanboying over her.