Arrow has failed this season.
If I wasn't so invested, I would just put aside Arrow S3 till it's over and only watch The Flash for now.
Thea's training. Oliver's survival and recovery, his fight with Ra's, the fact that Chief Lance will call out Roy with the quickness, but maintain "plausible deniability" with Oliver/Arrow, Diggle ops to stay at base of operations and let Laurel of all people go out on patrol in his place during Ollie's absence.... it's all so stupid.
Not to mention Ollie returning on Live TV, yet not wanting Ra's to find out he is alive.... but wanting time to train with Merlyn so that he can defeat Ra's....
if Merlyn was that good, why wouldn't he just challenge Ra's himself? oh yeah, he's smart enough to send dumbass Ollie in his place... let him make it his fight.
Season 3 is suffering from the Glau effect, but I hope it recovers soon, because this season so far has been garbage. easily trounced by the likes of Agents of SHIELD, The Flash and Gotham (in that order). That is a mighty fall from grace at the top of the lot. But there was a lot less competition last season (s2 was excellent up until the last 3 eps.)
I will agree they have made some missteps. However, I will say you are being little hard on the show.
1) I don't think Ollie was on national TV. The Glades had been cleared of police I think it was probably cleared of media as well. He was rallying the people. However, the other side is that Ollie could just assume the League would already find out about him...after all training to be a master only takes like less than a year anyway...look at Thea.
(Thea is the biggest misstep I see this season. I know why they are doing it...but it just looks stupid.)
2)Laurel is stubborn and was going to go out there anyway. Should Diggle have gone instead or with the team...but perhaps Laurel didn't know how to properly use the system to help on the backend. At any rate they needed to get her into the action because it is destiny to get her in the action. Brick was a minor enough villain to do it with.
(What I don't truly understand is the Dark Archers motives. I know he lies all the time and can't be trusted, and I actually liked his tragic backstory, however, the whole idea of forcing the Arrow to go after Raj Al Ghul was insanely stupid. Now Thea, him, and Ollie are in the cross hairs...but really it goes back to just him.)
But my biggest complaint I have is Ollie should have come back to life from the Lazurus Pit. I know they like to keep the Supernatural and Super Hero stuff out of Arrow, but if you bring a character like Raj Al Ghul, you should bring all of him. How cool would it have been to just jump a couple of months. Have Black Canary and Arsenal with the Atom protecting the city...and Ollie comes back crazy from the Pit and a villain. Only to find out through flashbacks that his mind isn't entirely gone, but made a deal with Raj Al Ghul after his resurrection...to kill the Dark Arrow.
His team goes against him instead of agreeing, and he is pulled back into the good side. That would have been an epic season 3.