Ah, I'm fairly thick skinned when it comes to people bashing my favourites. For example, Suzaku doesn't get much lovin on this community but it doesn't particularly bother me. And you're right about Clovis. He's a Princess Princess throwback for sure.

We haven't seen enough of Shirley to judge character development yet. You could say that the 'change' is merely a desire for revenge, i.e. tracking down Lulu in hopes of finding the Black Knights and attempting to shoot Zero. Even so, I can't see Shirley ever managing to get her revenge. She's too... flimsy is the only word I can think of... Now Suzaku, after his mental breakdown and rant about injustices of the world, I can see him having the resolve to pull the trigger. Shirley just... I don't know, I don't think she could have killed Zero even when she didn't know it was Lelouch.