Ghost in the Shell never really held my attention beyond the opening credits.
Evangelion was too miserable to continue watching. I just despised ALL of the characters too much to care about the plot nor the philosophy. I found the villains in NARUTARU were easier to root for then Evangelion's "heros."
In my opinion
Anything+EVA=AWESOME (Digimon Tamers, Rah Xephon, Narutaru)
EVA=CRAP
I chose those two because they, in my opinion, epitomize Shonen.
Gurren Lagann- If it's cool enough it doesn't have to make sense. TTGL does this better than Naruto, Bleach, Yu-Gi-Oh, DBZ, Souleater, Pokemon, FairyTail, etc. ever could.
Gintama- Takes popular shonen franchises BY NAME and parodies the f*ck out of them. It's like Ouran without the yaoi.