You liked the pain arc?
I liked parts of it, but calling it good is too much. It was probably one of the worst invasions and defensive battles I ever read . And the fact that the Village had so many interesting characters and the possibility of appearing even more new and unknown others, but in the end basically anybody did anything(other than being powned, majorly off-screen).
Not to talk about retarded Tsunade in the entire arc. And then everything going for Naruto, that got a stupid powerup, powerup the felt even worse given the 2,5 years of timeskip where there little powerup, if not powerdown(due to the uncontrol of kyubi) and right before elemental training.
Also not to talk the way the arc started was stupid and destroyed a ton of plot points of the series. The akatsuki never during Naruto life attacked the village. Sasuke in the beginning of that arc even asked why, and Kizame responded because they didn't had man power. That was a little weak argument, for taking decades to take a kid, but it was all destroyed with Tobi sending right after Pain to attack the village because of a whim. And worse the fact that Pain totally powned the entire village. It practically invalidated every base the story had until that point.
About who is to fault about how the story went. The fault is always and will always be of the author. The story his is, the final word is his, the one that places what he has to place is his, and the name in the chapters is his.