SonicBoyster

Well, in comparison with all of the other games that allow you to make universe altering decisions which carry into its sequels, I'd say Mass Effect 2 handled it pretty well.  There are other games that let you do that, right?
 
I'd rather you had been forced to lose at least one person, and I'd much rather the suicide mission have been longer, but I'm not sure your decisions are being ignored.  I think playing a renegade as opposed to playing a paragon character, or some kind of hybrid, is supposed to be more about role playing your character, and less about making a philosophical argument about how being mean to people is going to bite you in the ass.  The real decisions in Mass Effect 2 are about how you handle the genophage, whether you keep the collector base, what you do with the rogue Geth, and presumably whether you support Cerberus or reject it.  None of these decisions have immediate ramifications, but they'll either impact the gameplay or the ending of Mass Effect 3.  I'd like to have seen more done with the counsel decision, or the romantic interests, but I'm reasonably confident they're just setting those decisions up for the conclusion.  Remember, the more they try to mess with Mass Effect 2 the more they have to account for in 3.
 
I was happy enough just to keep getting emails from people I helped out in Mass Effect 1, and to hear from the Rachni queen, or to run into the woman I let go from the Krogan genophage research facility.
 
I think a part of the problem here is that the game gets less predictable the more you role play a character and the less you game the system.  I've heard people bitching all over about losing loyalties to party members or screwing up quests that I never had issues with, and part of that may have been because I was playing it safe, or just have been because I stacked my paragon status so high, or did quests in the proper order.  It kind of sucks to go through the game the first time and have everything work out perfectly, and I do think the developers were playing it a little too safe in trying to make everybody happy by making their "darkest" game in the trilogy have next to no sense of danger or forced failure, but I'm hoping they'll make up for it in Mass Effect 3.

First playthrough everybody survived and I blew the station.  Everybody surviving disappointed the hell out of me, so I went back and created another importable save where Jacob, Grunt, Mordin, and Garrus (that was an accident) died.  Not sure which one I'll end up taking into the next game... I just prefer that somebody die on a suicide mission.  Call me crazy.

Garrus and Tali were my go-to team.  Garrus because he rolled with me consistently throughout Mass Effect 1 and Tali because I'm old school.

You can't make any changes to your ME2 character on import.  You keep the same face and class.

Arrrbok.  Arrrrbooookkk.
 
Ekkannssss ekkannssssss.
 
Ecksbocks?

I enjoy free things.