I read a good portion of the whole Red Hood-Black Mask segment of Batman (my exposure to same is somewhat defined by what the library makes available), and quite frankly, it made me want to break the writers' fingers. Aside from the gratuitous levels of grim-and-gritty and the joyous flogging of the notion "Batman should be killing these supervillains, letting them live to return to terrorize again is irresponsible", both the Hood and the Mask were heavily laden with "plot armor", showing no particularly novel or ingenious planning abilities or skills yet somehow knocking Batman for a loop because, hey, that's what was written.
Argh.
I'm somewhat ambivalent about the "New 52" reboot decision, but I sure as hell hope they can do better than that.