I can understand how someone might hate "protect" missions, but I can't really think of many that I've even seen. I imagine a possible problem is that you're not in control of what you have to protect. There was a time when I thought I had to protect Natalya in Bunker 2, for example, and it would sometimes drive me nuts when she would walk into cross fire. And I've heard complaints about, say, Secret of Mana, when your team members would become stuck behind trees.

I don't think anything like this is a problem with the Control stage, though. Natalya doesn't have to do anything. There's no way she (or the computer AI, if you're being literal) can screw up her side of the mission. Your success is entirely based on what you do. So, there's nothing about that stage that bugs me at all; I think it's great.
I LOOOOOOVE Flying Omelette!!
Crawl and 1000