This actor has been in good in other serials- but the Vishnu-Meethi story has been terribly scripted. It's absolutely OTT. Couldn't he like, be a normal character like Aman was? He was okay in the beginning, but it's been downhill from there. Suicide stunts? Blood on hands? What the!!!
As for the missing shirt- well, it's not that he's got a bad physique. But the look works on two types of characters- 1.rich, mysterious, super-urbanesque cool dark guys 2. angry young rugged village fellows- and Vishnu is neither. In fact, seems like the CVs can't decide what to make out of him- first he is a mysterious saviour who can bash up people, then he isa sweet and humble priest, then he is Veeru from Sholay, then he is the guy who boxes and injures his hand when he';s angry and upset...what the hell?
2ndly, the kind of scene where you can accept the shirtless guy hugging the girl is where you have a real passionate love story with lots of stormy hate-love equations and conflicts and oppositions. And all we've got here is a guy who isn't sure who is and a girl who mood has more swings than a seesaw and because there is no credible lovestory or believable characters, there's no passion nor chemistry. It's sad really, because neither of them are that bad actors and the script is ruining them. It's like you say, the CVs are using them to just drag the show on so they don't have to actually move the story forward.