>>535638737
Not bait. Maekawa turned Tails into a jobber to prop up Shadow and hype his edgy recolor Sonic OC.
>>535639502
And Maekawa oversaw Sonic X's development and approved of their direction.
He also made sure to make Tails narratively or literally job to Shadow (his Sonic recolor OC) every chance he got. Allowing Shadow to supplant Tails' status as the 'Sonic 1.5' character. That's why Shadow gets spin offs now when Tails used to.
>>535639629
He made sure to narratively downplay Tails' potential and have there be things Shadow (his sonic recolor OC) can do and Sonic can do that Tails cannot. This narratively killed Tails' original premise as a character (someone like Sonic with potential to one day surpass them) by making Tails narratively job to Shadow.
As for Eggman, Sonic Heroes is great proof of this. Here you have Eggman working for the 'good guys' and a bait and switch Sonic V.S. Eggman plot.
He destroyed Sonic's extended cast via ruining their reputation. Maekawa's writing directly led to the "meta era" and Maekawa himself, for the last two games he worked on, chose to write Sonic in effectively original settings with recycled character designs.