I wasn't as personally offended by The Dark Knight as you seem to have been, but I don't think it was nearly as good as Batman Begins. As a lifelong reader of comic books, I completely fell for the morally ambiguous need to lie to the general public in order to maintain the symbol of hope. That said, I only saw it once because I couldn't take subjecting myself to the heavy-handed depression-inducing three hours again.

Other hand? Old school Batman just plain rocks.