The notion of Eastern enlightenment as you describe it is an error on part of Eastern mystics, who, ironically, have yet to realize true nature of reality. They are stuck in samadhi (the mental state of complete bliss as in pleasurable peace), but bliss of ultimate reality (ananda) is merely fullness of all experiences (that, of course, includes the bliss of samadhi, but obviously encompasses all experiences). So yes, consciousness is just another neutral fact that by itself supports "no normative or aesthetic assessment".
But -- as you say, it's a question of perspective. Realization does not eradicate the apparent duality, it just puts it into its proper place. When you know that all of existence is uniform and that consciousness is one and the same (i.e. no matter if you presuppose it to be primary or emergent, everything is known by the same "I" at all times), it has huge implications. And as I said many times, it's the pinnacle of selfishness (but yes, human egoism is wrongheaded). As for life-affirmation -- life is, it's as natural as it gets, what better affirmation do we need?
Though from a different angle, I touched upon these issues (misrepresentations of realization aka enlightenment) here:
