I definatly agree with you there GreasyDogMeat (can i call you GDM? )), I also felt that in K1 the characters would stick by you and trusted you always, even if it didn't seem like that [Carth], but in K2 you couldn't trust anyone and they all didn't trust you all the time, such as G0T0 and Visas really, because of their history or their involvements.
I also thought that the influence system could have been better implemented than it was, such as; if you had really high influence with somebody/people, they would stick by you and want to follow you all the time. On the other hand, if you had really low influence with somebody/people then they would follow you for a while, but then lose faith in you, and disagee with you, eventually falling to the DS and becoming your enemy in the final 'showdown'.