I'm intensely disappointed with
The Intercept, but that's a relatively small piece of why.
I certainly recognize what you mean, they could fulfill both their journalistic and political agendas with half the editorializing and bias. I honestly can't tell whether it's a conscious choice to draw readers with a non-traditional style or just a side-effect of operating outside the usual structures of journalism, but either way it does their writing no favors. Picking up staff like Sam Biddle suggests it's the latter, and these are simply people without much capacity to restrain themselves.
But what's even more damning to me is seeing The Intercept's record on due diligence and source protection. I was sympathetic on this for a long time, since critics like Lawfare were so quick to make speculative (and technologically ludicrous) accusations. But across Juan Thompson's stories, the Reality Winner debacle, and Kiriakou and Hickman's exposure, it's become increasingly hard to understand the The Intercept as a competent player in these leagues.
I'm glad it's out there, and it's still doing some good work on investigative stories like AT&T data tapping, but I can't shake the sense that operating genuinely outside the establishment tends to bring inescapable flaws along with the good stuff.