I think the development has actually been okay.
For years, the X-Men lived at Xavier's school (which was no longer a school) as a traditional super hero team.
Eventually, the school opened its doors again as a school and it swelled.
Mutants were overtaking the human population (this was losing the original feel and had to be rectified)
House of M and "No More Mutants" put the X-Men back to their roots as being a small group in the world, but without the anonymity they originally had. They were sort of a safe haven and a super hero team at the same time, akin to Avengers and FF.
Moving them to Utopia fits. It establishes their territory not being in New York, it splits the mutants off, it makes them a super hero group with a base and also still a school for younger mutants to learn to control their powers, but they don't focus on that side so much.
Cyclops has developed tremendously in this time, whether its a development you like or hate. He's become a general thinking of survival for his people. That's his main goal and it's a good direction for him to be taken. If Hope proves to genuinely trigger the slow emergence of mutants again, Cyclops could move towards Xavier's dream again, but right now that's not the focus. I like the new direction of Cyclops being the hardened veteran, though I think having him employ the X-Force hit squad was too much. I don't care for him with Emma and I think Jean's last death was unnecessary and she would have been an excellent character through these past years, providing the moral compass and compassion against Scott's having to make hard decisions.
Wolverine has been horribly lost since they decided to reveal his origins. He's always been on the edge of going too far, but he doesn't. His purpose in X-Men was to take the punishment, but think back in the 90s. Since someone mentioned it, the X-Cutioner's Song. When they're on the moon after a fight, Wolverine's laying on the ground and says "Gimme a minute...punctured a lung." Okay, so he's stabbed, beaten, cut, and punctured a lung. That's gonna need a bit, just hold on. Now he's riddled with bullets and burned half to a skeleton and recovers in a few minutes. They've just taken him too far. They've also focused too much on Wolverine the Black Ops soldier. Yes, Wolverine will kill without hesitation if he feels necessary. He'll kill a whole mess o' ninjas. But he's not a murderer that just hunts down to kill. They've lost the samurai side of Logan and focus on him seeking revenge against anyone who hurts him.
What the X-Men are really missing is this:
When did any of them last go out to a bar? (There was one they regularly went to in the old days near the mansion, I forget the name)
When was the last time they played baseball or basketball?
When were they last seen in a recreational situation, watching a movie?
When did the X-Men last feel like actual people?
When did the X-Men last matter to the Marvel Universe? Spider-Man events might come up in Iron Man or Avengers. When has anything in X-Men last tied in to anything in MU?
And there's the problem. If Wolverine is going to be an Avenger, make him an Avenger, not X-Men x2, solo work, X-23's mentor, Jubilee's guardian, and an Avenger. I realize that a full 12 month story arc can take place over the course of an in-story month or even less, but that's something to consider.
Establish teams and stick to them. In the 90s, I loved X-Men.
X-Men: Blue Team
Uncanny X-Men: Gold Team
Wolverine: Solo adventure/mission occasionally with X-Men involvement (and often Jubilee)
This worked. What didn't work in the 90s was having Spider-Man in 6 or more different titles following 6 different plots or weaving in and out of one another.
I don't think the characters are really stale, I think it's too much attempt to keep drawing things out and sticking to the old. They're trying to reboot without rebooting instead of moving forward (the same thing that Spider-Man ran into, only they genuinely rebooted and are now rehashing old stories instead of moving forward).
Cyclops and Emma. What's the deal? Are they in love or is it just convenient? No talk of marriage and how much is Jean still on his mind?
Wolverine. Despite regaining his memory and past, the writers have made him more of an animal now than he was before. Where's the samurai? Granted, they might work on this in the new ATROCIOUSLY TITLED Wolverine & The X-Men (is that replacing X-Men Legacy?).
Rogue. Enough with the commitment issues and toying with a Magneto/Rogue/Gambit love triangle. We all know Rogue & Gambit are the couple. The fans know it, they want it. Move on. Hook them up, marry them, continue on.
Interlude: Why are comic book writers terrified of love and marriage? Why can we not have a married pair o' super heroes? We have to destroy Jean & Scott having him cheat on her with Emma? We can't write a supporting, loving marriage between MJ and Peter? About the only marriage left in comics is Reed and Sue, though I don't read FF myself. Does love alienate readers? Can they not relate to the difficulties of marriage and the effort it takes to make it work? What, no readers are married? No, it's just more convenient to have them sleep with someone until another story comes along and we can break them up for "drama" to hook them up with someone else.
Anyway...
Magneto/Xavier: They're both on Utopia, but we haven't seen any further interaction between the friends turned enemies turned friends in forever. Where do their ideologies lie? Certainly Prelude to Schism establishes they both see Cyclops as developing to take their place, but what does that mean to them and to their separate views on "the dream"?
Iceman, or a replacement: Who is the team's comic relief? Who is the one that keeps them smiling? There's no real established role for this.
Establish the mysteries and resolve them within 12 issues. During that time, sure, add some new dangling plot threads, but dig into those in due time. Some can be left hanging. I always liked "the third Summers" when it was hinted at and fans speculated on it, but nothing confirmed.
How long did they dangle the Wolverine/Sabertooth are father/son or brothers angle without really closing it? Some plot teases can work as just that: a tease.
The characters aren't boring, it's that the writers, or more likely the PTB at Marvel such as Joe Q, don't want characters to develop, grow, and move forward. They're moving forward with the ongoing story of the X-Men fairly well, but the characters themselves are sort of being kept in limbo. It's like you have a plot that's moving forward while characters keep standing still.
And just since others have mentioned it:
Personally, I hate Grant Morrison and everything he did with the X-Men. The comic that inspired the movie became the comic mimicking the movie and went on to tell us Xavier was a murderer before he was born, Cyclops is cheating on the woman he's loved since we met the X-Men, and I won't forgive him for giving me Beak or Kid Omega, both of whom I hated. I didn't like them when I was reading those books and I don't like them looking back on them.
