Well, part of the problem is what every anime adapatation of a manga series has to deal with. How do you prevent the anime from catching up to the manga? Hunter x Hunter took the ova approach. Let one arc finish, then make an OVA about said arc. Most other series that I'm aware of take the filler approach. HxH did it during the TV series. Filler isn't always, bad. Sure, finding examples of good filler material is like trying to find a small diamond in a pool of doodoo, but it's still a true statement.

The thing with this filler, is that I find it entertaining minus a couple of things. There really are only two things that's going to make things to come have less of an impact, and both those things are related. I'd say more on this but I think it might constitute spoiler. However, I don't think it's going to be as bad as you're making it out to be. Certain other things about the people involved will make up for it. For one, even though there's some canon material in this filler, 90% of it is still filler, that's why I call it filler.

I should have been clearer on this, but what I meant to say, was they that they have a chance to advance the actual plot with this filler. However, they've yet to actually do so. Nothing thus far that occured in the manga concerning the characters they've introduced, has occured here. So I'm taking this filler as a fleshing out of some potentially ineresting characters, and of the fire country itself. Konoha is the fire country's military might, but we don't know anything at all concerning the fire country. This is a nice way of trying to flesh out that aspect of things.

And about the canon episodes, I don't really consider all the staring contests to be filler. Everything that happened in those episodes, happened in the manga as far as I recall. That's just an example of animating the chapters, very, very, VERY, poorly. Horrible job, but not filler.