I have to disagree with the characters. It depends on who you're talking about. Naru and Mitsune I don't find them all that well written. The ladder just felt like looking at a worse version of Ryoko. And even the worst version of ryoko would tell both of these characters to fuck off. Su just felt kind of whatever, and your usual wacky, dark skin, barefooted character. She is just a less interesting version of Ed. Shinobu it's just your now typical shy girl. I didn't hate her, but I didn't exactly mind her either. Motoko is the most interesting of the girls, and at least has a fully developed arc. With that said, I'm still not exactly the biggest fan of her either.
I do agree with you about being a standard slice of life. Had it been that way, the story would have been all better for it. LH to me at least, was always just the worst version of Tenchi Muyo. I know Tenchi didn't invent the genre, but the franchise popularized it. LH gave the genre "new life", but with most people taking the worst parts of the genre and going even further into meteorocity or badness.