I choose to believe that when Tony said he "fixed" Pepper, he meant "made her condition completely controllable, but now she can toast marshmallows with her fingers".

This is plausible, because it's not like the formula he came up with thirteen years ago while drunk was to get rid of Extremis. It has to be a way of preventing that little explosion problem so it works as intended. At the very least, Pepper should have super healing. (Of course, if Tony invented that, medicine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe would logically never be the same again. Superhero universes are good at ignoring technological breakthroughs, though.)

And yes, I was very happy with the Mandarin as well. As with the first movie, the real threat is a white man with American's military-industrial complex behind him, but I think the bluff with Scary Brown People was much more sophisticated this time.

Yeah. I am impressed that someone seems to have actually thought about this in the intervening time.

I am ashamed to admit that one of my favourite things about the film so far is enjoying the delicious tears of fanboys complaining that the film 'ruined' the Mandarin. I vote that Marvel continue ruining any other terrible villains they have lying around.