Besides the fact that TDK lifts it's 3 major plot points from Forever, (Sonar gimmick, saving Bruce's love or friend, Dent's death) let's analyze them.

Forever:
-A sucessful business man who personally oversees whats going on in his work place. Shown as empethic but cold making the moral choices
-Depicted as solving riddles and being a detective
-Alfred, who sees Bruce like a son, enourages Bruce to have a real love life, even disagrees with him on things
-Takes Robin in and tried to help him as mentor
-Tells Robin repeatedly you cant reduce yourself to killing
-Willfully challenges and outsmarts the villains at the end
-Overcomes his trust issues
-Saves both Robin and Vale by calculating and thinking
-Batman declares, "I'm Batman not because I need to be, but because I choose to be." at the end.


TDK:
-Bruce is incompetent and has Lucious Fox running everything for him at Wayne Corp
-Acts like a clown on near Christopher Reeve levels
-Alfred lies to him about Rachel, his true love, and even burns the letter she wrote to him
-He fails to save Rachel and Dent
-He takes the fall for Harvey murdering, things blowing up, and kidnapping
-Breaks his one no killing "rule"
-As Batman the only thing he expresses is he hates being Batman
-Gordan declares, "He's the hero Gotham needs, but not the one it deserves right now"
-At the end Alfred declares, "Sometimes the truth isn't good enough."

So what does this leave us with in Nolans Batman? Is it just meandering mess that tries to be a backwards Batman with a misrable out look filled with despair? Which tries to justify being a quitter and lies? And it's not dark aesthetically, even Schumachers movies are darker so that's not an excuse and Burtons arent nearly that misrable. Come to think of it, Batman doesnt even feel like a character in those, just a tool in a narritive.