I like the show, but I feel like they continue to paint themselves into corners with their characters. It's as though they know that the real characters have to go one way so to counterbalance that they make the non-real characters more unpredictable but that puts them in story lines that don't fit with what the show should be focusing on.

Getting into the mid and late 20's, this show is primed to really do some good stuff with chicago and new york. capone fighting with irish and to a lesser extent the sicilians, masseria trying to take over new york and starting the castellamarese war. There's a lot of really good, fact based stuff they could do to but a lot of it is outside the sphere of the atlantic city world.
I'm also kind of bothered that they show masseria with such dignity. the guy was renowned slob, and treated himself more like an american. That's not how the show presents the character.

I think Buscemi is great as nucky and I like nucky, but I think the transformation of him to a gangster wasn't the original intent and he'd have been better served being the political arm of the show while the gangster side was focused on guys like luciano and capone. It makes for their to be to much if you're doing the italian gangs and nucky's irish atlantic city gang along with all the side plots and characters who are examples of other types of people from the era.