I honestly don't think it was.
The continuity of the series and familiarity of characters such as Ash, TR, and Brock is what made the anime so great and accessible to both new and old fans.
But now that the writers have seemingly flushed all that down the toilet and are starting from...
I don't know exactly how she'll return due to the absence of Contest, but I'm quite sure she will, mainly because all the former girls have.
I don't see why the writers would treat Dawn any differently.
It's too early for me to rank it, but so far, it's off to a bad start.
The first thing wrong with BW is that it's simply rushed. It's only been 4 episodes and Ash nearly has a full team.
It's boring due to the lack of comedy that was once provided by TR. Pokemon was never a serious anime...
Everything is wrong.
Mamepato is with Ash in it's pokeball, we're only 4 episodes into BW so there's no need to complain about how many battles it's been in.
How does defeating 8 Gym Leaders Pokemon NOT show it's strong? That's ridiculous.
And we all know Type Advantages are rarely of importance in the anime, so you can't really downplay Infernapes wins because of them.
Starters are a main part of the games and the anime is a promotional tool for the games, so they will always end up on the main cast and Ash will always have at least one.