Details do not necessarily help make something less bland xP If those details don't draw the viewer's attention to the right areas, or if they're not noticeable, then you can still have a bland-looking result. On the other hand, if the minimal detail is well-placed and easily visible, you can have an exciting-looking artwork. You could certainly keep your shadows in the eyes, but if you do,
make them count by making them high-contrast enough to be easily visible at your target zoom.
I recommend checking out the sprites in the latest Momodora game. They have a similar scale and detail level to what you seem to be going for, but are executed very well. The colours are interesting, the contrast is good, and the poses are dynamic. You can find a bunch of the character sprites on
Spriters Resource.