Kishimoto doesn't write Itachi as an icon of perfection? Um... is that why he's never shown weakness ever, is given perfect scores in the databook and has never actually been defeated by anyone, just himself doing a 'valiant sacrifice' and now even chapters on from his second death Kishi is still praising him from the grave and won't let him go.
Kishi praises Itachi more than any fanboy.
Itachi was never defeated actually, but isn't the core of your point that we shouldn't consider powers but personalities?
And that Itachi and Minato are boring character because all there is to them is sheer perfection in intent and results?
Well...
Itachi slaughtered is whole family. Itachi tortured mentally his brother for years in order to
control how is brother reacts to the extermination of all his family, how sick is that? Whenever his brother tried to diverge from the path he has set for him, he either beat the crap out of him for it, or try to censor the truth, or try to brainwash him. He even set some post-mortem traps to make sure that Sasuke sees, hears, thinks only what Itachi decided he should. The extreme sickness, arrogance and unfairness of this treatment is something Itachi himself admitted.
True, he acted thinking of peace, of his brother's well being, of his clan name* (*= incidentally, was it right to still root for the Uchiha and for their good name after they were planning a civil war? Well Itachi thinks so) but he still did horrible things and treated everyone else like a tool.
Itachi is such a great character because he has dark sides and downfalls while being ultimately moved by good reasons.
People praise what he did, even after his death. Yes they do. You are missing one of the core points of the story. The ninja world is an harsh, dark world, and the vast majority of the "good" characters in it still think that for political and military stability it is pretty much worth it to commit a bloodbath. In the ninja world Itachi is a champion... but the rules of the ninja world are themselves the matter of debate. Pretty much everyone bar a few (Naruto, pre-incident Obito, Kakashi, maybe Hashirama only a little...) share the same values that led Itachi to commit the crime he did for a "greater good".
Itachi is not a knight in the shining armor, and is hard to consider him a hero, he himself doesn't view himself as such.
Which brings me into discussing Minato also. Yes, Minato is smart, kind, funny, skilled, loving and caring. Minato is also the one who threw his life away to avoid the village losing the Nine-Tails. Remember? Kushina could have killed herself with the Nine-Tails, but that would have caused the beast to later revive and go on rampage, while being not in Konoha's control anymore. So what does he do? He kills himself. In the process he seals the demon into his just born little son. All for the sake of the village's military might. No wonders that this move was heavily criticized by both Kushina and Naruto and left the Konoha's heads wondering why in the hell he did it, for years. Once again, by the manga's moral code, Minato did good. But he is not above controversy, just like Itachi.
Your core argumentation - that there is nothing to like or discuss about these characters because they are clean-cut masses of adamantine perfection - doesn't hold true.
