Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks gets a ridiculous amount of hate from people online.
I'm baffled as to why people hate it so much? Its got a lot going for it. It actually tries to build up an atmosphere, it makes the Daleks both powerful and manipulative and it offers a really interesting insight into the Daleks characters too.
As Journey's End NO. No way is it as bad as Death in Heaven. Its stupid yes, but it doesn't fuck up the characters histories or anything.
I actually think the first draft of Stolen Earth/Journey's End would have been better, but budget cuts and various other factors resulted in the edited mess we got.
1/ Rose was not to have appeared at all. Her final story would have been Turn Left where she would have helped Donna get back. (This changed when Billie became available. Shame as it would have been a great, mature end for Rose to have her help Donna get back, rather than become the whiney immature brat we saw in Journey's End. Also rather cleverly it would have allowed her to appear again without undoing her sad ending.)
2/ There would have been no Doctor clone. Donna would have absorbed the power from the hand and it would have killed her in the end, with the Doctor attending her funeral.
3/ The Shadow Proclamation would have had more Classic and New Who aliens. Zygons, Draconians, Mondasian Cybermen, Sontarans, Krilltraines Krotons, Slitheen, even possibly a Raston Warrior Robot etc.
4/ The Brigadier would have appeared. He was to have been reintroduced in the Sontaran two parter. He and Martha would have been close, with the Brig being like a second father to her. Her and the Brig would have escaped together from the base and they would have used the Osterhagen device to teleport to the Dalek mothership. There they would have made their way to the Daleks main engine and threatened to blow it up instead of the earth in the ultimatum scene.
5/ There would have been more aliens from the other planets the Daleks stole to use in the reality bomb in the reality bomb test scene. One of these aliens who escaped would have helped Martha and the Brig get to the Daleks engine.
6/ Donna would have used her time lord powers to free the Doctor and his companions. Whilst they fought off the Daleks, the Doctor would have shut down the bomb. Before the Daleks could have recaptured them, then the Shadow Proclamation would have attacked the Daleks. The Doctor would then be forced to lead the Shadow Proclamation to fight the Daleks. Whilst the war was going on the Doctor and his friends would make his way to the Daleks main base and shut down their engine, destroying the crucible.
The Shadow Proclamation would have been summoned by Torchwood and Sarah using the same device that they used to summon the Doctor.
The earth would not have been towed, but rather sent home by the Shadow Proclamation who would have been almost completely destroyed in the war against the Daleks.
Sadly however Billie proved available and so RTD shoehorned her in. Nicholas Courtney meanwhile was out of the country so the Brig was written out of both stories. Martha's role as a result of Rose's inclusion and the Brig's exclusion was shortened down. Budget cuts also meant that they couldn't do a full Dalek vs Shadow Proclamation war, so the ending is condensed (with the Daleks as a result having EVERYTHING in Davros' room.) This also meant that there were fewer aliens in the Shadown Proclamation.
Unfortunately Russell also crapped out of killing Donna too. With Donna's death averted and the Dalek war edited out, Russell needed a new grand finale and so he unwisely stuck in the TARDIS towing the earth back.
IMO all of these things would have made it better.