To be fair, the author Q/A didn't give that impression. Goku is lauded for having more natural fighting talent and Gohan is stated to have a greater overall potential. Vegeta just had a head start in front of them.
Though I disagree with the idea that Vegeta is a "exceptional strategist"; in fact, I'd say that becoming a Super Saiyan before Goku should make him more careless and sloppy.
The problem is we never really get to see these things in the story itself. The most impressive things I recall Goku doing are beating 17 and 18 in the mirai timeline, and beating Lord Slug at a point in time where he posed no actual challenge. As for Gohan, two major moments that could define him are ripped away from him. Is he going to beat Garlic? Nope, Vegeta. Is he going to take out Cell? Nope, Vegeta.
I think he beats every single villain that has appeared in the story up until Chapter 79. I only recall him being beaten twice, and those were only for very brief periods where he was attacked from behind by sneak attacks. Now contrast that to the amount of times Goku was beaten in canon through simply being outmatched or overpowered, or the times canon Vegeta lost in straight-up combat.
I think the Q&A portion was the saving grace of what would otherwise be a straight up Vegeta love fest. I do think the characterizations were good for the most part as well. Goku, for example, takes Vegeta being the "strongest" in stride. Vegeta's still stresses out about Goku matching his power (even though he's stronger he wants the gap to be bigger). The author's plan was to have Gohan continue training, with Vegeta's victory/sacrifice bringing this forward. Vegeta being the strongest entices the other fighters to keep training just in case Vegeta goes rogue. The biggest problem was that Vegeta was too successful, imo.
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When Good Fics Go Bad
I'll just start by getting this out of the way. Firstly, the writing and prose for this story are very good, probably surpassed only by fanfics like Honor Trip from what I've read. The basic premise of Vegeta becoming the first Super Saiyan is interesting enough, and the updates were surprisingly frequent up until November.
Now that the good is out of the way, I can dive in and go into how what started off as a good fic went into a mad orgy of Vegeta-wanking. To begin with it started well enough, Vegeta transforming against Frieza on Namek and then winding up killing him and taking over that empire. There were some early problems, such as the new Super Saiyan model in the fic that coincidentally instantaneously makes a person stronger than Frieza(Yes I know the x50 thing isn't canon, but it makes more sense to me) and the Star Wars robot that exists just because (His shtick gets real old real fast) but the fic was still rather good.
I believe the start of darkness properly began with Vegeta killing Garlic Junior. It was the start of an ugly trend wherein Vegeta would swoop in, steal the glory from someone else, and then curbstomp the villain. Also there was some pointless Yamcha bashing back then (I'm not even a big fan of Yamcha, but the fanbase gives him way too much shit nowadays). From there Vegeta went on to be a super-special-awesome-mega-badass curbing seemingly every antagonist, while everyone else was given table scraps at best.
And more and more asspulls snuck their way into the story from then on. Vegeta pulling an EMP attack out of thin air to beat 17 and 18 at the same time. Cell developing some psuedo-Mass Effect bullshit, blowing up a star in his base form by ramming into it really hard, Vegeta turning into a Super Saiyan 2 just to upstage Gohan... Vegeta just devolved into a God-Mode Sue, while the author harped on his greatness.
And the hard sci-fi, oh dear lord. As a general rule I don't like hard sci-fi, but I loathe it being wedged into something as anarchic and off the wall as Dragon Ball. It's like going to a circus and instead of seeing the clowns, the accountant comes out and reads the circus expense reports for the month instead.
Starts off good, and then divebombs straight into bloody hell.