Avengers/Defenders War question

I finally picked up a copy of the Avengers/Defenders War TPB. I'm curious about a few things, if anyone would care to oblige.

1. How did Loki regain his sanity?

2. Has there ever been a fight as unexciting as this one between the Hulk and Thor? They trade a few blows and then stand there grappling with each other yet not moving, each trying to gain an advantage for an hour? I didn't think the Hulk had that good of an attention span. 8) Seriously, I imagine fans were quite disappointed with this at the time after the build up it was given. I admit it was impressive, but not terribly exciting.

I remember this series as one of my all time favorites. Among many memorable moments in this arc:

1. Hawkeye. As a Defender, battling The Avengers. And his hillarious relationship with the Hulk, who insisted on calling him 'Purple Stick Man'.

2. Proctor John, originally introduced in Fantastic Four #54 (The second Marvel comic I ever bought) and the Evil Eye.

3. The maybe infamous, but totally classic aforementioned 'pensive' Thor vs Hulk match-up. One of my favories, just because it was far different than the Hulk vs Thing and Namor vs Iron Man slugfests that were prevelant at the time.

4. Dr. Strange and The Black Panther

and

5. Loki and Dormammu. At their EVIL bests.

At the time....fans WERE quite excited over this....and quite satisfied.

Of course, if they had Usenet and web boards, they would have turned quite dissatisfied and disgruntled in a twinkling...

No doubt. 8) I guess I just expected more of battle (like HULK #300). As I said, it was impressive, I guess just not very satisfying for me. I did like how Thor declared himself victor in their previous battle for his prowess, even though he admitted it appeared to be a draw. That's a really dumb thing to say to the Hulk.

I remember thoroughly enjoying the whole thing including the Thor/Hulk clash. In fact I had a big blow up of the Hulk-Thor pinup page up on my wall for a while after the big fight issue came out.

I don't know anyone who read the thing at the time that admitted to any disappointment. In fact this thread contains the first disparaging words I've ever heard about the storyline.

Thor and Hercules used to always act like that. They seemed to have some kind of selective amnesia that kicked in whenever they lost a fight. If they remembered something less than a complete victory, they'd swear they'd been holding back.