I've always thought DB to be fairly stakeless and predictable.
Saw the grandpa Gohan twist coming, saw the Roshi twist and Goku losing coming, I guess Krillin dying the first time was okay, but Super Saiyan was the most telegraphed and predictable thing ever. Nothing in the Red Ribbon or King Piccolo arc in general surprised me. Same goes for most Cell Saga and Buu Saga.
I think the only time I was ever truly surprised was the beginning of the Cell arc - Future Trunks' identity and the Red Ribbon army coming back.
Always been in it for the fairly solid character writing and good sense of humor (which unfortunately became less and less as the series went on), I like the shift to more comedic stuff in the Buu Saga, but how it treats most of the characters is just kind of a mess and much of it is my least favorite part of DB, fights with not very substantial character writing. I like the tonal direction, but not much else. As much as I generally don't like the more serious DB stuff, the Cell arc and Freeza arcs in contrast at least had some meaning in their fights. Vegeta's redemption is the only interesting thing to come out of the Buu Saga to me.
The moment the DBs started to be able to revive characters and the rules related to them started changing/were able to be changed (and new DBs were introduced), the stakes basically dissappeared. You know on a meta level that the story can just come up with whatever excuse to use the DBs to fix any problem. It's always an expectation on the table. Even if they were to be removed completely, you'd still have the expectation that they'll just get them back and fix everything somehow. Low stakes is basically built in the DNA of the series.
I've always been a defender of Super because I think it has a bunch of fun character stuff in there. I liked seeing 17 and 18 work together and interact throughout the ToP, I liked Freeza, 17 and Goku being the final ones standing, it's also now another one of the rare times DB has somewhat surprised me. I like Goku's "selfishness" because the reasoning behind is often that he sees good in the people he interacts with. Rather than just wanting a good fight, it's both his faith in the good in people and wanting a good fight (see: the Raditz fight, not wanting to stop the androids in the Cell Saga and now trusting Zeno won't do anything bad). The moment he bargains with Freeza and their interactions are great. I found Ribrianne and U2 and the U6 Saiyans really fun. I liked that Gohan stuck to his character arc all across the ToP. I liked the Roshi moment of him being inspired by Goku and Krillin. I liked all the two parters (Gohan, Krillin, Hit) and the slice of life stuff (Mr. Satan episode, Pan episode, Baseball episode, Arale episode).
I'm even okay with Jiren. He had as good of a end his type of character could've had.
Like, give me episodes of Cheelai, Lemo and Broly going on adventures or Jiren trying to be more social or Caulifla and Kale's street gang times or even a magical girl episode with Ribrianne and her group. There is personality in here.
I see people trashing on Super, but every time I go back to stuff like the Kefla fight it just puts a smile on my face. I've seen people compare the ToP to the old Broly movie because it's all fighting, but the problem with the old Broly movie to me is that it's kind of soulless. Yeah, the ToP and new Broly is a lot of fighting, but I feel like there is at least some personality (and understandable motivations) in that fighting.
Edit: Case in point, the Eng Dub of Super episode 130 aired this week and aside from the pretty animation, on another rewatch, I really did like how Goku was handled in that episode. It's just the right balanced writing for his character. Not this standard heroic character, but cares nontheless.