Yes but again that made complete sense, the death of L made him careless as there was no one to keep him in check. Light from a few years ago was on his toes he would have never made the mistake he made at the end, that was a reflection of him becoming too comfortable.
Yes you are right but i didn't like that careless attitude. It was forced. Light was a careful character by nature not because of L. L just made it more interesting by forcing light to make blunders. Neo (or whatever his name was) didn't force light for anything. In any case for me, ending of DN was terrible. How can light trust someone else with notebook so much. How could he not have a backup plan. May be i just wanted light to win but that's how i see it.
On the other hand, CG became a masterpiece towards the end of s2. The strategy that light employed to get rid of L in the middle of series was employed by lelouch at the end of series. I guess that made ending of CG perfect. Besides lelouch's backstory was more interesting, you know rouge prince thing. But like i said it's personal preference. These two are best characters by far for me though.