I'm ten episodes in now and I've read all sorts of comments, mostly negative.
So I ask you: how would you reboot it?

Do you think it would've been better if Riley was the traitor instead of Nikki and that she was supposed to join the team? And what would you change besides the obvious of the gunwielding team and kicking out Bozer?

Well, for starters, I've grown to enjoy the reboot more now than I did when it started. I think there was definitely an adjustment period for me, and I'm able to enjoy it now more for what it is, rather than constantly comparing it to the original series.

BUT, even so, there are definitely things I would do differently if I had been placed in charge of rebooting the franchise. Here are a few things:

1. Hire an older actor to play Mac. Nothing against Lucas Till, but he just seems a bit too much like a college kid, and it's hard to take him seriously as some sort of top-secret operative (especially early on in the series. By Season 3, he's kind of grown into it a bit more, but even so, I'd prefer someone older.)

2. Drop the formula. I know I've gone on about it plenty of times, but the show is so ridiculously formulaic (opening gambit -> character development scene -> briefing at Phoenix -> adventure -> resolution.) That's a perfectly fine formula for some episodes, but when it's used in 95% of the episodes, it gets boring. Vary it up.

3. Don't shoehorn every character into every episode. Each character on the show is fine, but when they're all crammed into every episode, it makes the show overly crowded and often leads to some contrived situations. I'm not even saying the show has to go back to the "lone wolf" style of the original, just don't overcrowd it with characters who don't need to be there.

4. Show more about the villains. One thing that's really weird for me in this reboot is that we barely ever see the villains unless they're directly interacting with the protagonists. The show never cuts away to show us what the villains are plotting or anything like that. They're not characters, they're just plot devices. The only insight we get into the villains on this show is what we're told during the obligatory briefing room scene at the start of each episode. Everything is shown entirely from the protagonists' viewpoint. This makes the villains very forgettable.

5. Tone down the quirkiness. I'm not saying the show needs to be super serious, but sometimes I think it's a bit TOO flippant, such as the humorous captions that tell us where the scene is set. When the characters are supposed to be in danger, it's hard to take it seriously if there are constant jokes.

Finally, someone puts it into words

Even I have to admit, the show is getting a bit boring with the formulaic system. They really do need to vary it up.

And the jokes in the captions are really bugging me. Makes it feel too much like a comedy. And half the time, the actual scene is serious enough to keep the tension going a bit, but the jokes just throw off the mood.

Quite a few people on twitter have been begging for more and more jokes in the captions. I think it should be toned down. I'm not saying that they should remove all those jokes entirely, but maybe knock it down to 1 or 2 per episode?

And of course, I'd love to get a feeling for the villain's plotting and to get to know them from a different perspective, like you said. I think they sort off tried that in the season 2 finale, but we need more!

I think it's their way of "not taking themselves too seriously" as RDA always puts it.

I've always thought those captions came over from Burn Notice since at least one of the producers was involved in that show. Burn Notice had them down to a fine art. They knew when to be funny and when to be serious.

I actually don't mind them.. I feel they substitute the humor that the original MacGyver would sometimes through into the middle of a serious situation - such as the "Coffee was a little strong" comment in Last Stand.
Instead of including it in the scene like TOS, this crew seem to prefer giving us a chuckle at the start and then BAM full on serious action/drama.