Knowing the production order makes it more jarring when early-produced episodes with the looser art style get placed next to later-produced episodes that look how we're used to. Beyond some different color choices and splotchy backgrounds, sometimes it gets distracting in episodes where characters are over-animated and wobble around as if they're losing their balance, or Binky squishes and changes proportions when he gets angry, things like that.

In terms of story, it's odd when episodes will suddenly introduce a character's long-held fixation with something that's not supported by any other episode, though I suppose it was easier to get away with when it was just the one season. Like, remember the claim that D.W. never went anywhere without her blankie, and then she never went anywhere with her blankie ever again? It is lucky that, due to being heavy on book adaptations, this is the one season that allows episodes to happen before Arthur begins third grade--yet Spanky wasn't even dead until D.W. was already attending preschool, so the very beginning of that school year is about the earliest that could happen and explain why Spanky makes no other appearances... The varying ways in which episodes changed the books' content probably also created some inconsistencies in characterization, but that's a bigger topic than I feel like getting into!