There's a difference between risks and fake-outs

This, pretty much. Style over substance, and as you say, lots of filler that served no purpose. If Rey had joined Ren, then that would have been interesting. The plot could have gone in several directions from that in Episode IX.

Phasma shouldn't have even been in it since it is heavily implied in TFA that she is thrown in a trash compactor on a base that is subsequently blown up a very short time later. So having her even appear in this film is nonsense.

Don't forget the "Rey's lineage" fake-out. And the "who is Snoke?" thing. So many mysteries from The Force Awakens dropped with very little payoff.

Rian Johnson had to take some "risks" (which were often gimmicky) because he obviously didn't have many ideas going into the movie.

The first example of that is, of course, the filler you and I and so many have mentioned. It's just blatantly obvious. Having any major motion picture with extraneous filler side-plot is absolutely embarrassing.

The second example is that he definitely had to use more "cute creatures" and a lot more comedy to make up for his lack of ideas. Most of the comedy was fine, but a little bit of it was sitcom-level B.S. (arguably the prank phone call, but also the "steam iron" bit and that annoying bit where Holdo and Leia both say "May the Force" at the same time).

The other example of how lacking he was in ideas was the overwhelming concept repetition:

-Overbearing and overwritten line, "Spark that lights the fire that burns the First Order down," is spoken by Holdo and then near the end of the movie is randomly repeated verbatim by Poe. He doesn't even make it a reference to Holdo, because it sounds like he thought it up on the spot.

-Three people buy some time distracting the bad guys with a trick. Poe did it, Holdo did it by having the ships sneak away from her cruiser while she flies onward, and then Luke did it.

-Two times, the heroes sneak away when the bad guys aren't looking. Leaving Holdo's cruiser, and escaping through the Crait cavern. This is obviously linked with the one above, but the Poe "trick" has a different result, so I separated them.

-Two different herds of four-legged animals will help us escape. Crystal foxes, and casino horses.

-Three people sacrificing themselves for the cause. Rose's sister, Holdo, and Luke. It would have been four if Finn had succeeded flying into the mini Death Star laser.

-Two people kamikaze another ship to save someone. Holdo did obviously, and Rose did it when she ran into Finn (no clue why she assumed that she and Finn would survive that).

I'm okay with Leia's use of the Force. It's not like she was flying through the sky. She's in space with no gravity, so using the Force to pull her to safety seems plausible with what we've seen.

Additionally, Leia is still a Skywalker. She can remember her mother's face despite being a newborn and could tell Luke was still alive in the end of Return of the Jedi. She also sensed Han's death. She has innate Force abilities. She's just not trained.