I’m one of those people. It helps a lot if you mentally replace the whole metaphor-speaking thing with a simple inability to use the translator.
It’s not the directionality. That’s easy as you yourself point out. It’s that they do a “racial war” episode and they just have to set it in the “southern” part of the galaxy. Jesus, the message was already being delivered through our windows subtly wrapped around a 2-ton wrecking ball…
That nothwhitstanding, the Cheronians still were a monstrously lame idea, agreed. As that the “California Planet of the Seminude Aerobics Instructors” with its random death penalty was quite a less than satisfyingly drawn society.
Although the collapse of the Federation was pretty cool, I hated how they turned Earth into an Orion slave colony. What is it with the Orions and their trading in live humanoids, anyway? Given the interstellar distances involved, wouldn’t it be cheaper just to build robots?
Darmok and your mom at Tenagra. 
[sub]i kid. i actually stole this from amusing.org[/sub]
I’m gonna have to vote for the Eymorgs (and the Morgs, too!) from “Spock’s Brain.”
“Brain and brain! What is brain?”