>>23454022
>Skyrider is right there and it does everything worse, down to the legend riders.
What. Skyrider had the suit-only team ups, but it also had actual team ups with Rider 2, V3, Riderman, X and Stronger's actors. Rider 2's and Stronger's actors also return multiple times.

And, you know what, I WILL bat for the suit-only team ups too. At least it allows them to actually use the past Riders as recurring characters when they wanted rather than making them one offs or having to make the whole schedule spin around actor availability. If anything the aversion to this stuff has only hurt modern anniversary shows in comparison.

Skyrider would have been objectively worse if you had the power up arc without any past Riders or just Rider 2 and Stronger in the final battle.

If you want an example of mishandled past heroes in the Showa era Black RX is a much better example, where all past Riders are suit-only and they use that to give them recurring roles in 7 episodes... but also basically don't actually allow them to do anything that could overshadow the show's cast (even the non-transforming supporting ones), which ends up resulting their presence being really pointless.