Thanks for sharing your take on Wes Anderson, I enjoyed reading your post. If I understand correctly, your main problem with Anderson is that you think there's not enough substance behind his style. You can make this claim for other directors as well - Jim Jarmusch comes to mind, for example. However, I think in their cases, style is substance. You can enjoy Anderson's films as popcorn movies and they work fine, they don't need to be complex or overly original for that. I think you can also look at the way his films depict the world and which thoughts might be behind this depiction, and for this his style is key.
Honestly, my main problem is not his technique or his style. It's the horde of followers he has earned himself with that style, which isn't his fault tbh. If a director has a vision and wants to make movies his/her way, I'm all for it. I think being in a lower-level cinema class just gave me an overdose of Wes FANderson's (i made that up, pretty clever) and I was already annoyed with him before but now I'm on a divine mission to rebel against him or something. Yea, i don't like the guy's movies, but I also completely agree with you when you say his style is his substance. And Wes knows it too, that's why he does it, and it's a cool exercise in mise-en-scène and set control. Thanks for your comment! It's always nice to hear fans of Anderson explain their side to me