You're not alone in thinking these things. A few months back, somebody on another forum I frequent posted a similar thread, saying he felt Blonde on Blonde was overrated, for many of the reasons you've cited. In response, I wrote a defense of the album which, if you all will indulge me, I'd like to repost here. I hope it makes some sense.

I think, with this record in particular, it's really essential to keep in mind how it was made: those marathon, all-night sessions in Nashville—the importance of which is probably best understood by way of contrast with the New York sessions that preceded them. By that I mean, if you listen to the New York recordings, you can tell immediately why Dylan discarded them: the mood is all wrong.

Compare, for instance, any of the NY versions of "Visions of Johanna" that are out there (or "Freeze Out," as it was then tentatively titled) to the perfectly rendered version that's captured on BoB. What's the difference? In NY, the song is ABOUT the middle of the night; in Nashville, the song quite clearly comes FROM the middle of the night. And that's the crucial element that makes the whole of BoB so distinct.

Now consider the aspect of the record for which it is most commonly criticized: the sort of lyrical pirouetting that is featured most prominently on "Sad-Eyed Lady." Well, that makes a lot more sense once you take into account the stories attesting to the fact that "Sad-Eyed Lady," as with many of the other tracks that made the final cut, was not only recorded in the wee hours of the morning, it was also largely written in those same wee hours. And that holds across the board. These are nighttime songs through and through—that's when they were conceived, that's when they were performed, and that's when, in my view, they should be listened to.

I think, with any song, if there is magic to be had, it is in the experience of feeling that there is a story unfolding right in front of you, in real time. And, I think for that to occur, the mind of the songwriter and the mind of the listener have to more or less coalesce. I know, for me, I can't forcibly get to that place. It has to occur naturally, and it's something I've found I don't really notice as it's happening. But it's through this process, the subconscious process of kind of letting go and losing my own sense of self, that I find it's possible to relate to what I'm hearing in a far more direct way. It's like I'm no longer standing in the way of my own enjoyment of a song. And there is real freedom in that.

So, although I wouldn't necessarily say it's the "best" Bob Dylan record, BoB is probably my favourite if only for the fact that it has allowed me to get to that place more than any of the others—that place where rather than being stuck "interpreting" songs through the prism of my own experiences, I'm able to feel a whole series of songs as if they were my own experiences. But this phenomenon only takes place when I listen to it at just that right time.

Let us never forget, that it is in the early hours, on the edge of paranoia that some of the greatest artistic discoveries have been made, Blonde on Blonde being one of them. That's where this record was born, that's where it lives, and that's where it will die. Right on that edge where beauty and madness sit side-by-side.