I still don't think there should be a necessity for characters you can bond with. They can be done well (though the examples of them are very rare indeed) - but there is no such thing as a perfect person in real life. Why should we have them in fiction? They're boring and predictable, and it's far more interesting for me to read about a reprehensible, Machievellian character than to read about someone who has no flaws. Mieville has some characters which are generally "good" - Cutter in Iron Council for example, but they aren't without their flaws. If writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez can do it and get a Nobel prize for literature partly because of that, I don't see why there should be requirements for sympathetic characters in fantasy.
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Also - has anyone else noticed that there doesn't seem to be much beauty in the world of Bas-Lag
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Yes - Mieville has as well. He was asked a question about where were the nice parts of New Crobuzon, and realised that he hadn't described them nearly as thoroughly. But it's a position I sympathise with - most industrialising cities are not at all beautiful, and we haven't seen much by way of landscape - in Iron Council it was only where the train was, and then the route that followed wasn't through the nicest terrain either. I can't remember another town being properly described other than New Crobuzon, so I don't know how we can generalise that they are all
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dirty, dingy, scummy and depressing in appearance and in population
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. We've got the evidence of one city here, and that city is heavily influenced by London.