Of all the complaints I've read about the Dark Knight Rises here on GAF, this is one of the odder ones, to me.
You can argue that he botched the execution. I'll agree with that to some degree. You can argue that he didn't do right by the character of Batman/Bruce Wayne - I can see where you're coming from on that front. You can suggest that Bane got defanged/denutted, sure. I disagree, but at least you can point to the text of the movie and have some support if you apply the right lens.
But there is no way a movie of that size, filled with that many characters, with that many arcs, aiming for the thematic heights the movie is aiming for, is "phoned in."
it's ambitious as hell. The film suffers because he doesn't quite make good on those ambitions, sure. But to say Nolan as a director "phoned it in" makes almost zero sense when actually watching the movie. There's too much there, shot and staged with too much care, for me to even begin to agree that Nolan was being fuckin' lazy.