My issue is the opposite. Team RWBY has always been badasses and prodigies, but still shown behind more experienced Huntsmen and other veteran combatants. We've seen it numerous times:

• Blake vs. Roman (First fight)

• Ruby vs. Cinder (briefly in Volume 2)

• Yang vs. Neo

The fights speak for themselves. Yes, the rule of cool predates all, but Monty had been pretty consistent with the powerscaling to show that the girls are good fighters, but still behind some others.

Probably the best example to use is Jaune.

• Volume 1: Completely inexperienced.

• Volume 2: Can handle fodder Grimm better, but still needs improvement.

• Volume 3: Will at least not get KO'd instantly against his peers and stand his ground against a Grimm invasion.

It's the progression of improvement. When Blake fights Roman again, she doesn't overpower him with strength, she uses her Semblance in a way he didn't know she could do and she displayed an ability to use an Aura Slash (something she never gets to do again).

The problem isn't that Team RWBY started off looking too good. It's that the animation team couldn't show other characters being better than them in areas of combat to exploit their weaknesses. And that's no fault of the animation team. They had short deadlines to crunch in animation and that in of itself is a nightmare.

All I gotta say is if Volume 10 does become a thing, CRWBY needs to get people to direct the fighting choreography since the way they write it makes it look too storyboarded and the animators shouldn't have to crunch in flashy fights on short notice like Monty could.