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It's not Papyrus in the second one. They designed a new font called Toruk.
The Avatar movies serve two purposes for James Cameron: world-building and technological boundary pushing.
World-building: James Cameron loves imagining the ecosystem of Pandora. All the different plants and animals that we may only see for a few seconds are each things that he has put a lot of thought into. It is hard to deny that, while the stories he has told in Pandora are not super exciting, the world itself has an impressive level of complexity.
Technological boundary pushing: The first Avatar film was basically the resurgence of 3D in movie theaters. It is the reason why every movie for the next 5 years was 3D. It was why people started buying 3D TVs. It could be argued that it’s the reason that the Nintendo 3DS was announced the very next year. Avatar took 3D from being some gimmick where things come out of the screen to a truly immersive movie-going experience.
The second film is all about the mechanics and challenges of making CG water look real and beautiful. Water has always been a hard spot in visual effects, but Weta patented a brand new technology for Avatar 2 to create “thin film interfaces” for areas where water is seen on the surface of textured materials. Another new technology was created for the process of filming motion capture underwater rather than putting actors on wires and trying to fake what moving underwater looks like.
While most viewers are not keen enough to know that all of these things are happening, our brains are very good at determining when things look fake. So, when it does look real, you notice even if you don’t realize that you notice.
Yes, the plot is a little lackluster, but that’s not why people love the movies. It is because they are visual masterpieces >

Best explanation I ever heard about Avatar was:
The explanation is in the name. The movie isn't called Avatar because of the avatars in the movie. The movie is called Avatar because it is there to provide a medium for you to experience the alien planet and its flaura and fauna. The movie is the avatar. It doesn't need a good story because the world is the entire purpose. >

There seem to be a lot of people who take something that's supposed to be descriptive and think it's prescriptive.  I notice this a lot on this incel forum I found because I was researching surgeons for jaw surgery.  They think a face has to have certain features or else it isn't attractive, so they end up thinking Timothy Chalamet, Henry Cavill, and Cillian Murphy are not attractive.
Anyway, the same personalities or thinking styles will think Avatar is bad because it lacks certain features that a movie "needs" in order to be good.  But those features are just things good movies tend to have, not things a good movie is required to have.
I fucking loved Avatar, the first one.  I only saw it once.  I haven't seen the new one.  I wasn't even all that excited for the first one, although I am a Cameron fan.  But I got super high, which is something I normally don't do, and like 5 minutes into the movie, I was like "holy shit, I'm looking at a real alien right now."  It totally brought an alien planet to life for me, and at that point, I simply did not give a fuck about how original the plot and characters were.  
But ultimately the movie wasn't about an alien planet, but the Earth.  It was about seeing the Earth as you would view an alien planet.  Because a lot of the creatures in Avatar aren't that alien, but based on sea life.  And it's like, why are we so excited about an alien planet but so complacent with the Earth.  An alien visiting Earth would be astounded by all the life and the diversity and yet there are plants and animals on Earth that most of us have never seen and we're not even curious to see them.  We spend our time posting on reddit instead.  Avatar was about the main character waking up to the beauty of Pandora and it was asking you to do the same for the Earth.  
It was just a glorious experience for me.  It made me feel alive, and so someone saying "Um ackthually it's just Dances with Smurfs in Space, just sounds dumb to me."  It's like being at a concert where everyone is super into the music and being like "Heh.  He just played the wrong note. Did anyone notice he was off key there?  This band sucks." >

Henry Cavill and Cilllian Murphy are attractive according to incels' models for attractiveness, so I'm a little confused. (Frankly I've never been able to make sense of these "prescriptive vs descriptive" expressions people-well, you and one Tiktoker are the only ones to use it, and he uses it constantly, assuming you aren't one in the same, which would be reasonable to assume given the rarity of the phrase. By the way this is maybe the only phrase I've struggled to convert to cold hard mathematical logic.)
But yes, everything else you've expressed seems obvious. It just means that statistically, Avatar likely has more of a niche appeal. 
I don't get how the movie can apparently have great world building when you only see brief snapshots of the worlds presented. Unless there's some Avatar book series I'm unaware of, I doubt that's even remotely possible. Especially if they prioritize visuals over story so strongly, as you and others here believe. >

I went in expecting a turn-your-brain-off, sci-fi action-adventure with wild CGI.
I got a turn-your-brain-off, sci-fi action-adventure with wild CGI.
Learn to temper those expectations, and understand not everyone is seeking the same thing when they go to watch a movie. >

Honestly I dont get the hate they get. Yes, they are very dumb, cliche films but they are visually impressive and all in all are entertaining popcorn flicks. Just average sci-fi action. Thats all.