I'm doing good, man and it's great to be back. And yeah, our Hulk debates were always a blast

t:
I think anyone would, no matter who they were, you are going to fight harder for the people you love rather than some random who for all you know could be a bastard.
The thing here to remember is that, ultimately in each case, Spidey was successflu. He managed to save May and MJ without totalling Ock. It wasn't easy, nor should it have been.
Have you never knocked anyone out? Thats incapacitating someone and you dont have to cave their face in, Ock was a scientist not a fighter. I'm a big guy, bigger than Alfred Molina, I bet I could knock him with one good punch. And I dont have super-strength.
First off Molina is actually quite a big guy. And while I don't know about his real life fighting ability, he certainly looked convincingly menacing when he gave that gang of guys a beat down in "Maverick". I don't think he's that easy to drop.
But- for Spidey the problem is more complex. For one thing, it isn't that easy to knock a person out. Professional fighters, whose job it is to do so can't always manage to do it when desired. Fighting is too fluid a situation. Again with your oppoent moving and you moving, angles shifting and weight distribution being constantly changing.
And then for Spidey it becomes even harder. As these factors shift, he has to keep trying to gauge how much pressure is behind each punch. Compunded by his having to deal with Ock's rapidly moving tentacles. Spidey, because of his strength level can't know how much is too much, so he has to err on the side of caution in order to not kill Ock. I know this from my own experience in teaching martial arts. My students, who have less control are moving so quickly that I have to constrain every movement I do because if they move toward me too quickly, it's harder for me to put the brakes on a punch, to avoid hurting them.
And you talking about the A.I of the arms, not once in the movie were they able to move location when Ock was out, grab things yes, but if Spidey knocked him out and then got out of their reach, he would be fine to save Aunt May.
The tentacles did move while Ock was shook. When he slams into the taxi, Ock is clearly out of it, (His head is dangling as though unconscious) and the tents lift him and stand him up, at which point he revives.
And Spidey did what you said. During the wall fight, Spidey fires the web into Ock's face, pulls him in and belts him, sending him tumbling off the wall. This is how Spidey climbs the wall to reach May. But then, again, the tents grab Spidey. So the terntacles had to have taken over and saved Ock from falling to his death and went back after Spidey.