I've seen a bit of talk that they've neutered the power the ring/lantern has. In this last episode he shouldn't have needed to create a shield to block the bullets from the sheriff, that the ring should have effectively created a barrier for him on its own. That it shouldn't be so easy for someone, even John Stewart, to just take the ring off him whenever they want. And that the ring shouldn't lose power as quickly as it seems to in the show.

And to your point it doesn't seem like he's using it for much. If you watched the most recent Superman movie you saw what Guy Gardner could do, so are they saying Hal doesn't want to use it to do any of that? Does he not know, after all his time with the ring, how to do that?