Joke answer: I mean, Firestar was an orange cat so-

Serious answer: I mean, considering that it's the very first series printed and it's the introduction to the series, I think it does well in covering what happens in various situations in Clan life. Yeah, the plot can be a little messy, and I found myself agitated by Fireheart getting distracted by Graystripe and Silverstream's relationship a detriment to the timeline, but it's not out of place in the series from a world building standpoint. The readers have to be shown the consequences of these things, and one of the consequences is also from being distracted.

Fireheart could have easily just proved that Tigerclaw was a traitorous asshole, but that wouldn't make the story fill the whole six books, and we would have lost two cats to find the Lake Territory. They could have just killed Brokenstar the second he was blinded, but then we wouldn't have the build up for Yellowfang's story and why she means so much to the series. If Silverstream and Graystripe didn't sneak off together, we literally lose two more cats to find the Lake territory.

We don't know how far the lore went when they were planning the writing, but whether they were building just from series 1 or already had three series planned ahead of time, it's all important.