You guys have mostly covered everything about the new show that bothers me. I'd like to bring up a few more points, though:
They basically took the occasional worst elements of the previous show (patronizing guest interviews, obviously scripted and forced dialog, jokes, and situations) and made them more common. Then they added a main presenter who tries too hard to be over-the-top, and yet is lacking so much in confidence that he has to turn to the audience every 10 seconds to get their approval. One of the better Evans bits was in Xtra when he was the one being interviewed, and he was starting to actually articulate that he doesn't like the Viper because it's only good for racing really fast on tracks... but instead he just blames it on not having Sabine to chase him, and then turns to the audience AGAIN! Xtra's hosts and the interviewing of guests was much less forced, more reminiscent of the old show. They were able to be jocular smartasses without being annoying or rude.
One big thing we learned from the old show is that chemistry is key. Evans pretty much has none with Matt, but at least Matt has potential. Whereas Harris, Reid, and their guest had chemistry right off the bat. And for being a journalist, Evans' star interviews were absolute shit. I honestly think Matt would have done better, but they probably should have just let Harris do it. What's funny is that Chris Evans is basically Rutledge Wood: both wear glasses and have a strange sense of style, and on paper would be good TG presenters because they're journalists. But in actuality they just try too hard and are the most annoying person on their respective shows.
The new track is an awful idea, for several reasons. First, rallying is going to produce some very inconsistent and spread-out lap times due to the varying and unforgiving surfaces and layout. On the previous show, many stars actually looked forward to fighting their way up the lap board, and would anxiously lean forward while waiting to hear their lap time. And even though we still had wet laps, you could do some maths to calculate what their time would have been on a dry day. You ended up with a spread of lap times that were very close together. But a rally track and faster car are going to drive the moderate drivers to the top, because the fast/aggressive drivers are just gonna crash the car, and the slow/bad drivers are gonna crash the car AND go too slow. Which brings me to my second reason: rallying is going to be DANGEROUS! When they had gutless little cars on asphalt, you have plenty of traction to stop and turn, and not enough power to get into trouble. Sure, some folks would occasionally spin out or go off track, but they would simply SLIDE when doing that. Over the years, even on very wet laps, the worst "crashes" we saw were either going up on two wheels, kicking up a bunch of mud, or a wheel randomly falling off through no fault of their own. With the new rally car and rally track, I can see about every other star sliding sideways in a turn and either busting their wheels or rolling over, or understeering in a turn and wrecking the engine. Whose idea was it to put a huge dirt berm on the outside of the corners, anyway? Probably the same guy who wasted a ton of time and money laying concrete just to make a stupid mud puddle that only exists for dramatic effect. And speaking of water, as if the dirt parts weren't slippery enough, wet laps are gonna SUUUUCK. That poor Mini is going to take a beating, even if nobody wrecks it. The old reasonably priced cars only ever needed tires, brakes, clutches, and new hubs when the odd wheel fell off. The thing's gonna need new suspension every week!
What they should have done: Started the new show by acknowledging they have big shoes to fill, wished CHM the best in their new endeavors, but then made a joke about getting custody of the Stig. Admitted that they can't replace CHM, that they will be their own personalities, but they'll strive to keep the heart of the show alive. Then they should have spent the first episode basically doing what TG Xtra did: introduce the new hosts, explain the new track (or ideally left the damn track alone and just changed car), and invite a handful of stars to come out and set laptimes like the old show did when they would change out the Reasonably Priced Car. Also, was sad to see that neither the main show nor Xtra showed a map of the new track or gave clever names to certain sections or nasty corners. So far, we have The Jump, and The Water Splash. Whoopty frickin doo!
What needs to happen: Ditch Chris Evans, let Chris Harris lead the show. However, I'm sure Evans has a contract and isn't going anywhere, so he just needs to give up on the bad Clarkson impression, form his own character, and just TONE IT THE FUCK DOWN and relax and have fun with it. Unfortunately, I just don't see him having ANY chemistry with the other hosts like CHM did. Matt le Blanc is surprisingly the strongest part of the show. But he needs to just be himself, add a touch of confidence and enthusiasm, and sound less forced and and scripted. His quiet attitude isn't quite what I expected for the stereotypical American on the show, and it isn't bad, but I'd like to see the occasional burst of New Englander sass. In fact, I can see Matt bridging the chemistry gap and mocking Evans for being a stiff-assed Brit, which might actually salvage Evans for us. Rory Reid is a decent guy and a good interviewer. He kind of plays the straight man, and has Hammond's youthful exuberance, but Matt technically does have Hammond's American-ness. I do like Sabine, not the greatest presenter maybe, but I guess they really didn't give her much of a chance, and probably edited out a lot of her better stuff. Oddly, she's probably got the biggest balls of anyone on the show, with good potential for blunt humor, which the new show is direly lacking. I would kind of like to see a full-episode challenge between Matt, Chris Harris, and Sabine.
Above all else, though, my biggest annoyance with the new episode was that Matt le Blanc, representing America in both the show and the specific challenge, repeatedly mispronounced Willys. It's will-iss, not will-ease. But then again, blatantly mispronouncing things is a pretty American thing to do. We say things like Porsh, Jag-war, Pree-us.