I don't hate that Michele won, but I don't think she was most deserving. She struck me as kind of a Sandra-type winner - coasting through the game in an "as long as it's not me" mode. She was in no way a big strategist and/or driving votes. She did win some crucial challenges, so I'll give her that. Seems that her best play was her social game and not pissing off the jury (which is in no way a small feat).
But I definitely was rooting for Aubrey at the end. As she said at final tribal, she was on the right side of every vote post-merge, and was a go-to person for strategy. She lost two of her closest allies to medical and still made it to the end. And flipping Tai back from his bro-tastic alliance was pretty huge. She may not have been a challenge winner, but she did put up a good fight.
Agreed about Tai just petering out and finishing the game pretty weak. I loved him early on - got annoyed with him when he was being a jerk with Scott and Jason - and was kind of meh on him by the end (did love his affection for Mark the chicken and the fact that he successfully convinced a whole tribe of starving people not to eat a very easy and obvious food source for 30 days).