Totally agree on all counts. When you look at Welliver you don't get any cookie cutter comic book hero stuff. He's not a physical specimen. He doesn't look like he can run a mile after a bad guy or swim underwater for 100 yards. You get a guy who's dogged and determined to see a case through and unwilling to compromise and kiss ass.
What ultimately turned me away from the books some years ago was that they lost the ring of authenticity about them as they turned Bosch into something approaching superhuman, despite his getting a whupping or two. This Bosch is anything but...he's flawed but in ways that are all too human...and he's not the prototypical booze hound chasing skirts all night. (Not that there's anything wrong with it. ;)) He's every man.