I liked Sabriel for her competence and general good sense and cool head on her shoulder (and would have been really over the moon if I'd found something like that when I was more of the target age, and desperate for kickass heroines). But that same competence and well-balanced psyche and such are also a big part of what kept her from having the same emotional resonance for me as Lirael.

As far as messing with the audience's preconceived notions of what will happen, I think there are aspects of the second and third books that will please you more -- Lirael in particular seems to be set up in a lot of ways to be that same sort of wish-fulfilment fantasy trope we've seen a million times in Harry Potter and other books, where the unhappy misfit orphan finds their true magical heritage...only things don't play out quite the way that trope usually goes, especially on the emotional front.