It did seem to be a change for change's sake, I'm not shocked and appalled however as I stopped expecting it to be a recreation very early on (mostly due to the fact that the mysteries aren't exactly unsolvable by anyone other than Holmes and in fact the wife and I solve them about 5 minutes in

).
As said by others, and myself previously, I watch for the interplay between the two leads which I think is as good as that in the BBCs version. Different, obviously, but as good as. So yes having Watson largely absent was a bit odd.
I am interested in what exactly Moriarties plan was, or whether she was just messing about with Holmes. That said I had an equally difficult time in figuring out Moriarties exact reasoning in Sherlock too.