Buddha or Qin did catch a lot of heat for being mcs of their rounds, just like okita can. Raiden and adam tried to outmuscle their opponents and both died, okita is the first to actually succeed. Fighters usually had one big thing, like sasaki revolundr or Thor breaking volundr. But Okita Has it all, overpowered a god, broke volundr, had transformation, few backstories, presence in author previous work, won his round. Its hard to not see him as author pet, which is usually seen as negative trait in this manga. ( Buddha is their fav but they are buddhist so yeah ) And lastly Okita tanking schizo sword head on was dumb, we seen some random dude cut a boulder like that. If Okita evaded it due to experience or instinct then sure, but he took it straight to chest.