Dear John,
You are correct in believing that we are both lovers of Ender's Game, I
don't know about you, but I have read it through more times than I can
count. Each time something new is revealed to me, or some vaguely confusing
point makes more sense. As much as I loved the book, I always found myself
wanting to know more, to be told about some details that were left vague in
the original. Ender's Shadow did that quite well. I do, however, agree
somewhat that the information was a little biased because it all had to
relate back to Bean. Though I felt the book as a whole flowed well enough,
some sections were obviously forced and a but uncomfortable.
Once again, you are right, the Game was, and still is, Ender's, not Bean's. While I was more than once by the constant relation to Bean's superior intelligence, it didn't infuriate me as much as it seemed did you. Yes perhaps Bean was the smarter of the two or had better scores, but he lacked completely the skills Ender possesed with people and life in general. Not to mention that Ender's intelligence and smarts were his and his alone, not manufactured and copied fallacies that Bean possesed.
Your next point was that of the book being written only to Card to make money. Unfortunately such is the case with many sequels or additions to storie. The reality is that most authors do not continue a story unless they intended to from the start. If you've read the introduction to Ender's Game, you'll see that Card himself was surprised by the success of EG, when he expected it to be the least powerful of the four. With all the pressure from fans and admirerers, it seems like it would be difficult to refuse to write a companion book. Almost everyone who has read EG loves Ender and would like to know more about his struggles at battle school.
But no mater how much one would like to write a companion book, there is always the problem of timing within the story. Sometimes to make things line up properly, you simply -have- to move things about a bit. In truth, the single example of this in ES is the one you cited. In my opinion that is a very small change to be made to have a story fit together so well. If you look ay Bean's personality throughout the book, you will see his often sevretive manner, hiding things from other people unless he specifically wanted them to know. That would explain--atleast to some extent--Bean's false statements.
You also said that in EG Bean "certainly did not create Dragon Army." I would like to pose the arguement that it was never clarified who -actually- composed the group. In EG that matter wasn't gone into clearly one way or another, so it is perfectly plausible that Bean had a hand in it. Also, you will notice in ES that Bean was not given the choice of putting Ender's friends in the Army. When Graff gave him the possible canidates, they were only launchies and boys on the transfer lists from other armies. All of Ender's closest friends were excellent enough not to be on the lists of transfers, and certainly were no longer launchies. Also, all the possible canidates were younger than Ender; most of Ender's friends were his age or older. IN addition, the arguement is made that all the boys put in Ender's army had some sort of latent potential, that Bean managed to see. With such observance as he appeared to possess, this is more or less possible.
The last point I have time to address is the point about Bean's genetic alteration. Like you, I very much disliked this aspect of the story, though I felt the excellence in other areas over-wrote it. But while it's a part of the plot that could have been done without, it does nothing moe than strengthen the obvious disparity between Bean and Ender. As a person without enhancements or alterations, Ender is by far superior, and Bean's alterations support that solidly. You point out that Bean's issue of being a coward is never resolved, but in fact, it is. Not very well, mind you, but after his first battle he realizes that he's not really afraid.
In conclusion, I would like to argue that no matter how terrible or wonderful any one person thinks ES is, it can in no way, shape or form, ruin the story of Ender's Game. Such an amazing accomplishment of a story can not be marred, no matter how terrible the sequels or companion books may be. That would be almost like saying fan-fiction about a video game messes up the game play.