And here we have the weakest of the arcs, with the most time wasting moments and wasted potential in the series. In addition to Saeki (like you said, an uninteresting weaker version of Shirota), the replacement pilots (who actually could've worked, if we didn't have the army pilots, who serve as much better counterpoints to the main trio, not only by being part of the army, but also by not sucking out loud).
We also have the episode were Public Relations is dissolved, in all our heroes get transferred. This one episode would've been the perfect opportunity for the minor characters to shine and show THEIR hidden depths, instead of just Ooyama. Instead the writers had to inject Akagi - who (I argue) himself did a 180 in personality to support this new temporary direction - into her story to save the day.
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The Third Arc: A case study in why Pointy Haired Bosses suck.
This arc lasts for the period of time when a certain tyrant who has been annoying since episode 1 takes the helm, from start to finish (a month in universe, about 5 episodes out). The army is effectively put in their place (although the General Ripper is unfortunately still around, and will still do his thing to the last episode - more on that in later reviews), and as Kokuboga is out, they have to try and exercise restraint over both Dai Guard and Shirota, who is now more on the side of 21st Century than of the army. To do this, they send in Saeki, who will spend about all of this arc annoying you before his character goes 180 in the next one - honestly, he is the weakest character of the show, because he feels like a more rushed, annoying version of Shirota, and will do exactly one thing that Shirota cannot (much later).
This group of episodes is perhaps the most interesting. Though the series is ostensibly still a Monster of the Week show with a giant robot, said robot looses it's main pilots to... Pointy Haired Boss Syndrome. And the people who replace them are all by the book annoyances like Saeki (though unlike him, we are not supposed to hope for them to get better, we are to hope they leave, making it... slightly better? I don't know.).
This group establishes a lot. Dai Guard can, at this point, easily handle pretty much any Heterodyne that comes its way, so long as the pilots are able to use it. These new ones AREN'T, but when the originals use it they get good results (eventually Domaki decides to make the OS only work with them just to stop the nonsense). It also includes the only Heterodyne where not attacking it was the best idea (it had been "sleeping" for ten years, and would eventually melt in the Earth's core.) This will play into the idea that, though these things are monsters, they are also base creatures incapable of much thought, making them effective natural disasters - something that will come up later.