I agree with you, unfortutunately. Kerry was articulate and pointed without coming across as aggressive. And before this debate I was, and still am, a very strong Bush supporter. Kerry also didn't come across as pompous to me. While he clearly didn't come across as warm, he didn't come across as a cold fish, either.
And I agree especially about Bush's demeanor. I was quite dismayed to see how tight-jawed and grim he looked. And I at some moments his face looked like it was turning red from suppressed anger. He was like that almost from the beginning which I found startling--he was ahead in the polls, he looked instead like he was coming in with quite a hurdle to tackle. By comparison Kerry looked poised and collected.
I know Bush has been through a lot during the 3+ years and has had to make a lot of tough decisions, I just wished that he showed more spunk and optimism (like in the 2000 debates) and had brought up a lot of points he could have attacked Kerry with. As well as being able to control what appeared to be suppressed anger.
I think what happened is Bush and team got overconfident again--they thought they had it in the bag so they could afford for Bush to be too gentlemanly, and that all Bush would have to do was to refer to Kerry's "mixed signals" (code word for flip-flopper) again and again and they would win.