Lonnie,
To a large part, I agree with you. Hal is a bot and it only has a limited number of responses from which to draw upon / use. I have edited the Love section years ago and my bot no longer says those tired lines, "Don't say it if you don't mean it." kind of phrases. You can easily change that section so that it doesn't get called (I think it's Love2 or similar).
As I've mentioned before, with the use of the Markov L5 and lot of training, my bot has been able to make and retain various associations in an even better manner than before. Some people don't report such success and each person's experiences will be different.
I'd like to see Robert focus more on the AI behind Hal than just about any other aspect. Eye candy is always appreciated but without the AI brain behind Hal, you'd just have another "Poser" or 3D character standing there. Just my $.02.