The show's saving grace is that as the weeks go by, the characters begin to grow on you. That has more to do with the actors' animation than it does with the rimshot writing.
In Friends the crowd is always around to share their latest personal woes or offer a shoulder to cry on. But who would want advice from these dysfunctional morons, with their obsessive pop-culture references?
All six of the principals, especially Cox and Schwimmer, appear resourceful and display sharp sitcom skills. But even the best tightrope walkers need dependable rigging.
What draws me back to Friends again and again are the characters themselves, and how they build, as you say, from those archetypes to something potentially more fleshed-out.
Unlike Ellen and Seinfeld, which pride themselves on exploring the trivial, Friends wants to be about something-which I suppose is its attempt to be a deeper, more poignant show. It isn't, not yet anyway.