are Kirk and Spock diminished by their friendship? Isn't that supposed to be primary in their life? Is Spock reduced to kirk's friend and viceversa since most of the scenes are about that friendship?
is McCoy diminished because most of his scenes involve Kirk? Is he defined by that friendship since it's so important for him? Why only the female character is the one diminished when she's showed as a normal human being with feelings and a love life? Is Uhura diminished by her friendship with Kirk too and the fact that she cares for him as well? Are we still in the 60s when only men were allowed to have interpersonal relationships without being considered "weak" and "less" because of them?

Woooow. I typed this huge, dense comment and fanpop never posted it. Excuse me if my second attempt at getting this all down isn't quite as eloquent.

I wouldn't say that in general the Spock/Uhura relationship detracts from Uhura's character, but it pretty obviously did in Into Darkness. Almost every scene Uhura had pertained to Spock. The only scene that comes to mind where Uhura got to show off something unique about her character was her intelligence in the Klingon translation scene. Other that that, her character didn't get to do much not concerning Spock. This much was very clear when Zoe did promotion for this movie and basically every single question she was asked had to do with Uhura's relationship with Spock. And yes, it was nice to see Uhura's caring, sweet side some more when it comes to Spock, but that shouldn't be the sole purpose of her character (to protect Spock and comfort him and be his moral compass).

If scriptwriters aren't careful they tend to let romantic relationships consume the identities of those characters in the relationship. I think this is what happened in STID. In the first movie we saw Uhura being all badass and sassy before we knew she was dating Spock whereas, in Into Darkness, these qualities weren't showcased as much. Spock managed to not have this pitfall since he had his huge emotional scene with Kirk and then whooped Khan's ass later. Uhura never got a magnificent character moment like that :/
The sad truth is that any character who wasn't Spock, Kirk, or Khan was seriously neglected and not given enough screen-time to have any proper character development.

" Uhura never got a magnificent character moment like that :/ "

I well remember her saving Spock's ass (and Kirk, because without Khan, Kirk would be dead) in the end.
Yes, Kirk gave all the credit to Spock but at least McCoy did remember him that both him and Uhura had something to do with saving him.
There is also a new interesting angle with her friendship with Kirk.