SoA - We are still watching, but always 2-8 eps behind.

season 1 - one of the better shows on TV
season 2 - marred by gang rape scene you'll be forced to relive over and over again. I think it was OK, but it was impossible for me to get excited to watch.
season 3 - lol ireland wtf. felt like a spinoff.

since then - it's OK, occasionally awesome, mostly frustrating. In many ways it has the same problem as TWD - they can't decide whether they want to be make a fun sopranos knock off with motorcycles, or if they want this all to MEAN SOMETHING. The main character, as we're endlessly told via meh voiceovers, only wants to do right by his family. Then he'll make decision after decision that in no way help his family and invalidate everything we think we know about him. Or he'll change 'family' to mean the club, 1 guy in the club, not include his mom, etc, then back again. If that is their 'point', they should have gone with motorpranos and been done with it. MAKE A PLAN GOD LAUGHS, message endlessly received, let's move on.

To compare to the infinitely better BWE, nucky has done many terrible things, but I like him and want things to work out well. I am not rooting for any major SoA character to do anything except get got. I guess a show can still function in that mode, but it puts a ceiling on the success it can have. You don't have to work very hard to justify any plot development when you've already demonstrated everyone has no logical motive/plan/understanding of/for their actions.

To compare to the also awesome SFU, I ended up mostly hating the whole family by the end IIRC, but their characters and the issues they ran into were so well drawn and thought out that it felt real - it was hard to watch, but more because you could see yourself reacting in the same negative ways they did. With SoA it seems like every time they need to chose between a cool new plot line or maintaining consistency in the characters, they snap chose plot. The problem is we've seen every organized crime plot that could ever be made already (and thanks to HBO with better acting/dialogue) - the whole point should be how the expected events (OC is hard) move the characters.

It also compares badly to FX's better shows - Justified (almost has no plot, it isn't even clear what marshalls do) and The Americans (spies doing spy stuff in the 80s). The characters on these are interesting enough it hardly matters what happens, as long as it happens to them.