I know! I understand how popular Dune is but I started reading it many many times as a kid and never got through it. And I devoured the Foundation series. Everything you say is true! The characters are flat in Foundation, etc.

But the IDEAS are big! Psycho-history? Stupendous!

And the plot twists are epic! And yeah, Asimov knows how to make a page turner—the spry moves really well.