I totally agree with your take. My only critique is that BoB kind of whitewashed a lot of the horror of war. For example, in episode 2 when the lieutenant mows down captured Germans because they really had no way to accommodate POWs and they couldn't let them go.
And to BoB versus Pacific, BoB is a much easier story to tell. It starts late in the war and focuses on a less than one-year initiative starting June 6th, 1944. The Pacific stars much earlier and has to meld together initiatives all over small islands all over the South Pacific. The first episode is the Battle of Tenaru which took place in August of 1942. The second is Guadalcanal which took place starting Aug 42~Feb 43. Also, BoB takes place in Western Europe which is very similar, culturally/environmentally/topografully (sic) to the USA. While BoB was probably more entertaining, I leaned more watching The Pacific.
BTW, my uncle was decorated for saving two Marine's lives at Tarawa. As I understand it, Tarawa was the first of the island-hopping strategy of the Marines. Tarawa was considered a test case. The concept was to attack at low tide as the Tarawa beach was steep and it would give them more room to establish a beachhead. Unfortunately, the coral reefs 1000 yards offshore were only 4 feet from the water's surface and the Higgins boats required 5 feet. the first wave got stuck on the reefs and were used as target practice by the Japs. The Marines ended up wading onto shore while facing withering machine gun fire. The admiral in charge suspended the landing and the first wave of marines had to make do with only what they could carry that first night on the beach. The next morning they launched the assault again and had success. My uncle's Higgins must have gotten stuck. There were two Marines wounded and my uncle jumped off the Higgins boat and dragged them back to it. It then, apparently, headed back to the ship. We have the newspaper article.