Granted. And I certainly think Stephenson is the weaker of the names I'm about to mention.

But I don't exactly remember stellar plots from Gibson (earlier works) or Ridley Scott either. The cyberpunk-influenced genre is essentially defined by everyday troubles, draped with techno-decoration.

Personally, that's one of the reasons I like it. The fusion of slice-of-life pedestrianism w/ in medias res pacing always came across as more believable than any grand opera.

Statistically, significantly rare interesting events are far more likely to happen to a janitor than the King / Queen of the Universe.

IIRC, the reason the first chapter is so much better is that it started out as a comic book. After that peters out, he sorta falls back into long exposition with librarian AIs. Perhaps some day, story boarding will be a required part of Stephensen's novel writing process.