All those gifs etc. had led me to believe that Troy and Abed were the main characters so it was sort of disappointing to watch the first few episodes, which were so much about Jeff trying to get in Britta's pants

I had a similar reaction - I tried it after seeing this hilarious Annie vid. The conclusion I came to is that I just get more enjoyment out of watching a handful of clips of Annie, Abed, Troy and Shirley on youtube than watching a full episode.