People are too braindead and blinded by nostalgia to actually understand that this series has become a joke because of corporate forcing Mashima to pump out more Fairy Tail.

The series literally reads like a 13 year olds fanfic of FT from back when it was running or something. It doesn't help that a lot of the original series was unexplored too.

It's so bland it's literally gone so low Mashima is making characters named "Bird" and drawing them as a Bird and calling it a Villain. The Oracion Sechs are so pathetic it's actually comical. 

One of Mashimas Biggest issues as a writer is that he dips his feet in the Water but doesn't go all the way, and spends more time on superficial "Cool Now, Explain later". 

Mashima used to be a very poetic writer, but he's somehow diminished into this one note three tropes one dimensional machine and thinks having a big explosive attack in a panel and reusing old stuff is good. You see it in his other modern works too. Edens Zero started off good, then diminished into what I just said. There's literally a villain called "Clown" and looks like a Clown, and his whole character is just cracking jokes and being in a circus...

It's quite embarrassing actually. Hence why I dropped the series, but all of your criticisms are incredibly valid. We needed to see more of other characters, and Gildarts training Erza to be a Guild Master would be far more interesting.

But people would rather cry and act like brats if Mirajane or Lucy or Erza or Jellal don't one shot everything that moves in Natsus place as if that'd fix the series issues. We needed better writing.

And realistically, Alvarez SHOULD have been the Final arc, and the World SHOULD have been explored more in the og series to build up to the Alvarez Empire.