I was incredibly disappointed when the Ginyu/Bulma filler was left in since… that's one of the all time lows for the filler to begin with and one of the things I was most looking forward to being cut. Most All of the Bulma filler on Namek was godawful in fact.
I've heard the excuse that "frog Ginyu keeps showing up in the background and would be a pain to edit out" but… really? THAT particular filler story stays intact? Where everyone's IQ has to drop 80 points and it completely repeats the Ginyu falling for the frog body bit even after he'd gotten a 1 time out? UGH.
It was at that point I knew Kai wasn't living up to its promise and stopped caring about catching it. I didn't bother with Cell saga at all. Did they really only cut it from 77 to 44 eps? Not even half? When it should have been cut to about a third? They could have EASILY gotten it to 26-30 episodes and it'd probably be great. Should have at LEAST gotten it to 39.
I can understand liking SOME of the dramatic stare down/tension building, particularly before a fight starts, or liking some of the expanded fight bits, but there's no need for spending ENTIRE episodes on Frieza transforming to his last stage or Cell transforming to his last stage, it completely kills the pacing and makes the characters look like total goofs for not attacking during that 20 minute power up period. Really no reason for it to have still been padded as much. Beyond cashing in.
Little bits here and there to make an episode end time out properly to the credits, but really, 3 chapters an episode isn't hard at all and is a really good pace, especially when its so combat heavy with very little dialogue usually.
Some exceptions… Goku going Super for the FIRST time IS an important moment and deserves the lightning crashing and the flashing hair and the roar and the 3 minutes it takes, when its only 1 splash panel in the manga. But thats one of the few paddings I'd argue for.