Part of the problem is that the naval actions in 1943 were coupled to a campaign (Cartwheel) that was highly spread out and the increasing effectiveness of Allied air and naval superiority prevented the Japanese from marshaling the forces needed to conduct a large-scale counterattack. While there were no battles on the scale of Midway or Philippine Sea, the naval campaign in the Southwest Pacific was quite active after the Japanese withdrawal from Guadalcanal in February 1943.

In March, the Japanese learned the hard lesson of the growing efficacy of the Allied airpower in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in which airpower destroyed a Japanese convoy to New Guinea.The Japanese launched Operation I-Go aerial counteroffensive in April using existing shore-based aircraft and temporarily basing carrier aircraft from Zuikaku and Zuiho, making it a carrier strike by proxy, on Japanese-held shore installations in Rabaul and Bougainville. The offensive failed its objectives despite initial claims of success. The Aleutians also proved to be an abortive diversion for the Japanese as its marshaled together a fleet in Yokosuka in May to counterattack US forces at Attu with four carriers, three battleships, five heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and eleven destroyers, but the island fell before this fleet could set sail. In June, the Allies launched Operation Cartwheel, an aptly-named offensive through the Solomons to isolate Rabaul. Cartwheel led to the surface actions of the Battles of Kula Gulf and Kolombangara as US forces met the IJN reinforcement light cruisers and destroyers. The new threat to Rabaul prompted the IJN to reenforce the area with heavy cruisers from Truk in November, leading to the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay in which resembled the night actions of the previous year, albeit with the Allies much improved in their use of radar. The transfer of Allied heavy surface forces for the invasion of Tarawa prompted a carrier raid on Rabaul in conjunction with the land-based aircraft that heavily damaged the IJN's cruiser force. Meanwhile, the Allied invasion of the Gilberts caught the IJN off guard and further divided their already dwindling naval assets.

So the naval war was relatively lively through 1943. The Japanese were no longer as profligate with their naval assets as in the previous year, but committed forces when appropriate and husbanded heavy, hard to replace units like carriers and battleships. While the IJN carriers were absent in these battles, their component airgroups were often sent into the Southwest Pacific. The abortive Aleutian operation in May demonstrates that the IJN was not shy from using its heavy units if the opportunity presented itself. For their part, the Allies largely used their growing advantage in air and naval power in the service of the amphibious campaigns. Their growing efficiency made it incredibly difficult for the IJN to concentrate its forces and geographic expanse of these campaigns from the Aleutians through the Solomons caught the IJN off-balance. Carrier raids on Wake and the Marshall Islands in November prompted a similiar IJN response to the Aleutians, but the Americans had left before the IJN could sortie. By 1943. the initiative on the periphery of the Japanese holdings had passed to the Allies and the paucity of major fleet actions reflected this. The efforts on the part of the IJN to use its power in a more strategic fashion were ultimately futile in the face of the growing effectiveness of Allied naval power.

Edit: ack, I forgot to include sources! Even though it's older, Spector's Eagle Against the Sun covers 1943 rather well. Matome Ugaki's diary Fading Victory, even though some of 1943 is missing, is an interesting look at the Japanese perspective. The TROMs on Combined Fleet.com are essential to cover the back and forth of the major IJN surface units and allow one to infer how the IJN was caught off balance in 1943.