The excerpts you highlight were headscratchers for those who were familiar with Aquaman. At no point was he undervalued in-continuity. I always wondered why Geoff was writing as though those weird Super Friends people were his audience. In a lot of ways, Geoff seemed to want Aquaman to be Namor or someone else rather than Aquaman. I find the same or similar problems with the 52 approach to Captain Marvel, Wondee Woman, and Aquaman. Namely the creatives tried to male them into other characters while lessening or ridding them entirely of what made them awesome to begin with.