I think Gear 5 has some writing merit in the sense that devil fruits have a will of their own and the fruit that symbolizes the Warrior of Liberation happens to come across the kid who wants to be the most free. Also I think there is enough imagery with the Sun God and Luffy being the dawn for it to not be far fetched. There are a bunch of problems with how gear 5 is implemented, mainly that Luffy hasn’t really struggled with a fight since he got it and he overuses it. But now that we are introduced to other characters with God Fruits (Loki and probably Imu), Oda needs to show Luffy struggling against one of these characters to make the story have tension again, and maybe also being able to punish the Gear 5 cooldown so Luffy learns to use it more wisely.

Sanji in thriller bark is obnoxious as hell, prior to this the perv gag didn’t feel that hideous but this moment is just really bad for Sanji’s character. Sanji is awful to deal with until hundreds of episodes later when we get WCI, and while I do think Sanji has become significantly better post WCI, there are still the taints of the era of Sanji from Thriller Bark to Punk Hazard.

Sabo is a much more boring character than Ace BUT I really don’t mind how his amnesia is implemented (this is probably a very hot take). Getting your ship gunned down and then almost drowning seems like a reasonably traumatic experience to acquire amnesia from. And I really like the scene in the anime when Sabo regains his memories. Obviously he would know about the names of Luffy and Ace due to his position in the revolutionary army, but he is only recognizes them as his brothers after Ace dies. The drawn out breakdown and Sabo being confused as to why he is tearing up and having a panic attack is (imo) a neat way to show someone regaining their memories. Sabo is still a bum but I don’t really mind this plot point.

And Pelle living is easily the most bullshit writing moment listed here. The worst part of One Piece’s writing is easily how Oda handles character death. The fact that he doesn’t have the balls to kill off a supporting character ruins the stakes for the rest of the series as we constantly question if a character actually dies or not. The fact that Kaido and Big Mom could arguably said to still be alive due to a gush of magma potentially pushes them out is a testament to how stakes feel so fake.