Bond uses seduction purely in a functional role. At least the Danny Craig Bond does, as his only and true love was killed in Casino Royale already. That part isn't difficult to understand.
Still, I hate QoS. Maybe there was no chance that it could live up to the expectations after Casino Royale but then again there was Skyfall after this piece which, through suffering from "ridiculously overcomplicated plot" syndrome, was pretty good again. And then came Spectre, another let-down. Hmpf. So I suppose it ultimately comes down to script and direction when to ask why it didn't work. Mark Forster isn't a bad director per se. He made "Stranger Than Fiction", an absolutely brilliant film. Kite Runner, I haven't seen but at least it found critical acclaim. Then again, "Machine Gun Preacher" and "World War Z" were somewhat mixed bags. Neal Purvis wrote a lot of Bond scripts (some of them very good, most of them solid), and Paul Haggis has proven that he can write excellent scripts too. And still, this.
