When they tried to "toughen" her up, giving her martial art skills, it was so contrary to the established personality that I don't understand what the writers were thinking. They couldn't believably take a Princess-In-Distress and suddenly give her a backbone without having her go through some heavy strength-building trauma. The shit Lana went through was nowhere near what was needed to make the character "grow up". And that whole fiasco with Lex ... good god.