I never said his program is "empty". He's consistent, and his difficulty/consistency lends itself to a great performance. I'm saying that he doesn't have expression/difficult choreography consistently throughout his program. Like I said, he goes into jump mode, and when he executes that, he starts being expressive, until he has to go into jump mode again.
I think his injury and bombed SP at Euros was indicative that his body is no longer what it used to be. I never counted him out even in 2010 when he hadn't been competitive for years, because he had yet to show weakness in his skating and jumping. Due to injury, he has shown weakness in his skating... which is hard to overcome, let alone actually increase your difficulty following surgery by having 2 quads. This isn't something like the mental focus errors Chan has been having in his poor recent competitions (we all know that he can do a 2A/3Z/combo spin, same with Yuzuru who had a bad Worlds with freak errors and like Chan has fallen on a spin this season too). These can be overcome a lot easier than the physical burden of an injury and how that limits your ability. I have no question that Plushenko is mentally as tough and determined as he ever was, but we now have evidence that his body simply might not allow him to be a contender.
For your first argument, the "switching mode" maybe existing in your eyes, for many people, they are perfectly OK. Probably his expressive part is too intensive so by contrast, certain moments seems less expressive. But that is still better than Chan's performance IMO since it is just plain blank.
As I said, if you use what you argue now to start your argument of not be able to compete with multiple quads with other guys, maybe your argument might sound less arrogant and acceptable. Too late for that since your tone is set.