I think Agency is the worst book he's published, and it's not even close.

It was doubly strange to me, because I thought The Peripheral was the best thing he'd done since Idoru at least.

That's the only thing I might disagree with you on - I thought the Blue Ant books were pretty good, but not great. Pattern Recognition was definitely my favorite of the three, but still, aside from some of the characters and some of the set pieces, it just didn't impress me all that much. And by the time he'd recycled the characters yet again for Zero History, I was bored.

But then The Peripheral came along, and I was caught entirely off guard. Everything about it impressed me, and most notably, the character of Flynne. She's easily one of the best protagonists he's ever written.

And I emphatically agree with one of your points - I too noticed, and thought it was oddly ironic, that the entirely milquetoast protagonist of Agency (whose name I can't even remember) essentially had no agency at all. She barely even had any presence.