Agree with you about Subby, absent the great Schomburg covers and Everett art, he's a bore, and I've found few Superman stories from any Era worth reading.
I actually think restored books are better off raw, where you don't have a label distracting from their appeal.
For me, Sub-Mariner is probably the single most interesting character of the Golden Age. One of the major issues of our times is the way civilization has exploited and destroyed the natural world, including the oceans, and Subby was a champion of the oceans. He might have been the first comic book anti-hero. I find many of the covers from the Sub-mariner run somewhat boring, but the character is anything but.
Conceptually I'm with you - he was distinctly an anti-hero in the early stories, but the idea was little explored beyond the basic Subby shows up to wreak havoc storylines.
I know how we can settle this, if you can help me out. I just need you to get Vern (podboy) to sell me his Okajima copy of Subby 32 so I can read the stories in it. You can tell Vern I'll give him the full Overstreet value for the book!!! IF you can make that happen and IF the stories are no good, I'll publicly concede that Subby is an uninteresting character.