Sword Art Online

[Dark Dragon]

The main problem so far is that the anime is going in chronological order.

Episode 2,3 and 4 are all side stories written after the conclusion of the main story in volume 1. Which mean the author wrote these with the assumption that whoever is reading them already know Kirito from all of the information disclosed in volume 1. These chapters are just meant to offer some more extra information while introducing some side characters.

Most of your complaints about lack of character development mostly stem from the fact that majority of Kirito's development happened in the main storyline (as it should be). It's probably a mistake for the animation studio to decide to have the anime follow a chronological order instead.

With that said, most of your questions will be answered in time so have patience, or just go read the light novel.

It might also help to know that episode 4 in the novel is from the perspective of the girl, so everything that happened was just her takes of the event. It was intended to leave Kirito personality and character as slightly ambiguous.