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I have a similar situation, though I'm not done with Hibiki just yet (on episode 39 as of this post.)

I tried the first ep when it was new and I just was turned off the series. It would be until Kabuto that I really became a Kamen Rider fan and get more into it.

Recently with Decade coming out I decided to try and catch up on Kamen Riders I hadn't seen that would be in the show. I managed to find all of them I needed except one (waiting for TVN to sub Ryuki) and saw them all up to Ryuki and Hibiki. I recently have been watching it slowly and I have to say I got sucked into the storyline and pacing as well.

It wasn't very kamen rider but that's to be expected if you look up that background. Still, it was adapted well enough and I was enjoying it. Then came that dreaded trade off in producers and the entire series died off.

[spoilers]
I'm not finished with it yet but knowing asumu doesn't become a rider is a bad move by whoever took up the story ontop of the crappy new opening, odd new weapon, removing the pure sound stuff, the larger monsters and the mystery and badass-ness behind the "puppets"
[/spoilers]

In the end though, at least the idea was made I suppose. It may not have been done as it should and they ruined the second half but the amusing and original idea was fun for a little while.

After seeing the ending I can sort of see why they had Asumu not become an oni in the sense of a moral for how he was growing but shouldn't become Hibiki just because he idolized him. For storytelling however, it was a really lame move and ruined what could have been a much greater ending to the series. Having Orochi show would have been nice too. Or more of an ending to Jesse and James... er I mean the red and purple clones. The final episode was anti-climatic and horrible overall.

I thought about halfway through with the summer monsters things were starting to shy away from what it had been and get a bit lamer. In the last few episodes though, they went even further away from that. While it was awesome to see tons of monsters trying to fight at once it becomes lamed out because all the sudden Ibuki and Todoroki can beat monsters with ease that they shouldn't be (especially with no power up form of themselves.) "No wait, Todoroki, you can't use your Guitar to finish them till there are so many no one will care what you do!"

I would have to agree with the Todoroki-Zanki storyline, that was very well done and the last great thing to come from hibiki. The only problem I had with it was how Todoroki went from one step of recovery to nearly fully recovered but it was still a touching story. Only thing I wish from that is to see him use the double sword style more at the end there not just seemingly leave Zankis sword somewhere.

Agreed. Ibuki was very over shadowed by both Hibiki and even Todoroki a bit. I was let down that he didn't do the sealing of Orochi or do really anything. I liked that he was of nobility but it is kind of lost when he has nothing he really shined as doing. I would have really liked to see him at least get a power up like the Kurenai form Hibiki got. Todorki seemed too rookie to unlock it but Ibuki should have been trained well enough to be near it.

I saw the movie and it made me even more disappointed in the finale. According to it, Orochi is a dragon that in ancient times the main bad guys seemed to have around a castle and it would eat people every so often while seeming fully controlled. Yet at the end of the show, why is it considered to be even stronger than anything and if it awakens it would destroy everything?
It just kind of lessened the whole Orochi feeling. If I had seen the movie before seeing that part of the series I would have been like "Orochi? That lame thing? Just let it come back and Hibiki and beat it easily again."