Avira, I think there are 2 things to consider on Sephardi limud:
1) (generalizing, of course) they indeed tend to go into pilpul like Ashkenazim. Many commentaries include stories. This does not make their limud lower. To the opposite, I often find them addressing the core issues rather than dealing with some complicated borderline relevant issue. This may be akin to difference between Yerushalmi and Bavli, as we discussed before: Yerushalmi is more focused (and looked down at wild Babylonians), while Babylonians developed a complicated – and useful – methodology.
2) Sephardim did not have haskala. So, when they arrived in 20th century to modern world, they encountered same isues Ashkenazim did 200 years before. Syrians in NY did not do worse than French and Germans in Europe. On the other hand, pretty soon they jumped up on Ashkenazim bandwagon of developed solutions (schools, conservative halakha, shtreimels) and went through the painful process much faster. (same as, l’havdil, Afrikans get wireless internet skipping putting phone cables Europeans did fro 100 years before).