1)there was, and still is no point in having superman fight someone on a physical level in SR... SRII is a whole other story, so no need to complain about that point in SR (as you just did). One can pretty much garentee a super-battle in SRII.
2)*****ing about Lex not being the current comic book definition is also pointless, because it's too late for that now. Useless point number 2.
3) you're only good point in your post: a functional villain. The three that I personally would advocate for the SR sequel are Brainiac via New Krypton, Metallo via Lex, or Parasite via Lex. All three have the ability to match supes on a physical level, and mental level. Brainiac has no primary body, and can keep coming back to life. Metallo is basically a terminator powered by kryptonite, and Superman can't fight Parasite without touching him and gaining more power.
What do I want?
well, SR had all the character driven material it needed, but it totally lacked a major action sequence between Plane rescue, and the beginning of the new krypton chapter of the story. SRII needs that third sequence to be successful.
I'm pretty happy with SR regardless of its flaws. All the richard, jason and lois stuff is a little hard to get over, but depending on what direction it goes, it could rule hard (and visa versa, if they take it the wrong direction they could destroy the character of superman forever)
Really, all a SR sequel needs is to take the SR formula, and add another action major action sequence.