I’m 45

So yes indeed, coming at it as a younger person? 🙂 You would have been like 3yo when it came out, right?

No major character arch’s or touching moments of humanity.

In terms of the former, you'd be looking for something that's rarely there in that genre of film, so... of course not? As for the latter, I think there were some memorable humanistic moments, primarily driven by Bill Murray, and really, all the better for the movie avoiding dipping in to maudlin sentimentality and whatnot, the way other comedy-type films have done, past and since.

In my mind “Style” is entertaining and “Substance” is meaning.

Yeah, I see what you're saying with that. GB was certainly not about meaning, per se. But where I depart from you is that I take substance as being other things as well, such as the innovation I mentioned above. The film did fall in to a certain, fairly shallow type of entertainment, yet was still outrageously novel, interesting and even ground-breaking. That's certainly "substance" to me.