Yeah, it was a bit meh. But the book is so good I forgive the ending.
I barely remember the actual story in cryptonomicon, but his tangents on who fucked who in Greek mythology, how to eat cereal with a beard, how to assemble a Linux distro with such an obtuse user interface as to defeat Van Eck Phreaking, or Plato's cave are absolute gold.
It's a joke in my household that I often say "there's great a chapter on that in Cyrptonomicon" given basically any topic.
I learned so many random bits of information from that book.. Just the amount of work that goes into laying underwater fiber!