We'll cheer this shit on 'cause it's the right thing to do in this situation...but you know there's some chucklefuck out there like "He DiDn'T nEeD tO bE sO aGgReSsIvE!!"
The only way this works on the inverse is a matter of timing.
Case in point - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was a commercial disaster when it was first released, quickly dumped into the discount bins at many stores.
Many years later, however, it would find appreciation from the broader public, and be set shoulder-to-shoulder with Super Metroid.
Can we all just admit that Capcom really broke the mold when they managed to squeeze two discs worth of content - cutscenes and all - on a single N64 cart?
Bridget shouldn't have been made Trans for Strive.
Let's get one thing clear - I have no issues with the idea of creating new characters with a trans identity, what I take issue with is when you take characters with longstanding, pre-established lore, and hamfist things into their lore, like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.
Throughout Bridget's history in the Guilty Gear storyline, Bridget's whole story circled around a superstitious village belief surrounding identical twins. Bridget was raised to dress like, behave like, and speak like a girl in order to avoid being banished/killed.
Once he was of age to journey on his own, Bridget opted to become a Bounty Hunter in order to bring great wealth back to his village, hoping that, by doing so, it would help prove the village's superstitions wrong.
His ORIGINAL storyline would end with him returning to the village, fortune in tow, disproving the village's beliefs...only to discover that, in his absence, his twin brother had been absconded with, leading him to strike out in search of his whereabouts.
The constant gag running throughout Bridget's storyline in games where he was present, were people mistaking him for a girl - something which he would constantly, adamantly refute (much to the trauma of one particular pirate leader).
So, it makes no sense to many longterm GG fans (y'know, the people who actually PLAY the games and learn the convoluted lore) why, seemingly out of nowhere, Bridget suddenly decides "Actually, maybe they were right, maybe I was wrong, and maybe I AM a girl".
Bridget was a trailblazer when they were first created, giving us a GNC character who wasn't played off as a joke (See: Dan Hibiki), and was balanced as being just as strong as 90% of the other fighters (Fuck you, Potemkin).
Daisuke wanted to create an unconventional male character, and that's what Bridget gave us (also, Venom, who was revealed as gay through official audio dramas).
If they had taken the slow, long-term approach of having Bridget go through some sort of trans awakening (even if it was just in the backstory of games they weren't involved with as playable fighters), it would've made the whole reveal in Strive a lot less of a confusing shock to the longtime fanbase who'd been waiting for this character to return after 9 years of absence.
Like, at the end of the day, most of the fanbase just decided to drop it, accept it as Daisuke saying "This is how it is now", and moved on.
Like, at day's end, I'm just glad that Bridget was brought back to the fore, I just wish they weren't handled so sloppily. Like, if they confirmed that Xrd, Revelator, and Strive were all an alternate timeline from the Original games, that probably wouldn't have resulted in such a backlash, but we can't change what's been set in stone. Word of God and all that.