144 was pretty neat, but it seems like at every decisive battle the enemy is SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to show off a character's new feature.
I don't mind that sort of thing (much), but if they are going to make a "Hey check out my badass new powers" episode, they really shouldn't make the animation that shoddy. It didn't look like the animators had very much fun with it, and it really hurt the appeal granted it was an episode that was supposed to be about "hey lets have fun kicking arrancar ass". Sure they sounded badass, and did badass things if you describe them, but it didn't come off as badass to me while I was actually watching it.
My tolerance for this show is growing thin again.