As far as height of the line i gotta say SWA Goku is for sure a big peak but im gonna add in and say broly as well. For both those figures almost everything is perfect, detailing, sculpt, artiiculation, accuracy. If a casual DB fan asked me what are the must have figuarts as they only want 1 or 2 i would tell them to get those two (broly being somewhat optional due to the price hike of it being a web exclusive and an SDCC).
The knee cap thing coming on the upcoming 2.0's i understand the that people think is ugly, while it seems like a good idea it's really an inbetween solution that doesnt look perfect either way. If you have him standing you can kind of see the separation, and if you bend the leg you can tell it's a knee cap (IE trunks and krillin). I'm also not sure why they went with this vs the rounded hinge joints, they use those rounded joints on other figuarts already like their star wars or naruto for example. I think they mightve thought that fans liked the knee cap idea more, which wouldve been okay if they had done it like they did for broly, his knee joints were all molded with detail. Understandably, he's a bigger character so it's easier to do that with him, so like many others i agree the next best thing was rounded knee joints. With the 1.0 style the bent knees look ugly, but if you stand them straight it's completely hidden.
On the point of detailing, definitely some of the past figures have done it better. Biggest example is OG scouter vegeta, excellent shading and detail and tons of accessories. but the OG SSJ vegeta doesnt look too good imo, way too much shading on the skin and he just looks like he came out of a tanning salon or something. At the time all the 1.0s were the best dbz articulated figures to date, but some of the articulation is pretty dated especially the goku body and the old vegeta body. I personally like the super vegeta 2.0 alot more than the OG, aside from shading on the armor i feel that that was a decent 2.0, the shoulders were a bit much but really once you pose him you dont really notice it too much anymore (at least for me anyway).
Personally, i feel the sculpting and articulation are much better with the 2.0s, as far as hiding the joints are concerned it's the exact same way imo. In fact the knee joints look a bit better on 2.0 vegetas as they are the same color and material. The OG scouter vegeta the knee joints arent even painted it's a glossy plastic while other parts are painted matte. But in terms of techniques the elbows and bare knees (meaning non baggy pants characters) are all the same method and dont look different to me, hinged joints for elbows and knee joints that look like knee caps. What i think is holding it back is definitely lack of effort on detailing and shading. The old figures definitely make for better quality display pieces because of that, especially for people saving space with vanilla poses. The 2.0s however, need to be in expressive or dynamic poses to get them to look better due to lack of paint shading (also wth is up with the crotch shading they keep doing lol it's really dumb).
So overall, there's good improvements but i think what 2.0's are really suffering from is lack of paint detailing. For example, black series Qui Gon jin for star wars, first look, it seems terrible, but a customizer reapinted the head sculpt and actually, it's quite accurate. Same for the mezco bvs superman, final product seems to be barely passable as henry cavill superman, but again some customizers have repainted the sculpts (no modding) and actually the sculpt is quite accurate. Paint detailing goes a long way when it comes to how figures look, and really i think if tamashii put the same effort into detailing as they did into the 1.0s we would really be blown away. I love all my 1.0s theyre great, but im also an articulation buff as well, and the 2.0s can be posed much better and more natural looking imo.
Also yes, im just as disappointed in the final SSG product, they dropped the ball on that BUT the SSG hair sculpt being reused as a normal goku hair looks great (ie goku black) and shows yet again better sculpting than the original imo, it even has the striations in it like some of the other later artwork of dbz, not saying the OG goku hair is bad (it's quite great actually) but yeah. I also dont feel that the SSB goku is trash either, i think it's a pretty good figure, i do agree the hair could be flared out more as it's kind of too rounded in, but it's not trash, it has alot of new sculpting in it and is a decently done figure aside for maybe the gi being too red. Originally, the hair was gonna match SSB vegeta's but they changed it on the final product but didnt change vegeta's, so dunno why they changed one but not the other, i personally like the way it was gonna look and the way vegeta's looks more. I also dont know why they continue to use ball joints for ankles when other figuarts already use the peg hinge joints (which allow for way better up and down and pivot etc). I also, like the new vegeta hair sculpt, although i agree it's a bit much for normal black hair vegeta it doesnt look too bad to me still, although as far as facial accuracy goes i think SSB vegeta faces are more accurate but the new ones arent too bad.
Sorry for the long post guys, but that's just my 2 cents as well. Tamashii definitely needs to up their efforts though and stop trying to pull a hasbro bucky cap and reuse body molds for everything even on things that dont fit (ie SSG goku), theyre doing some things right but rushing and trying to save TOO Much money resulting in new better sculpts not getting detailing etc and ending up appearing a bit worse despite being better sculpted.
Spoiler:
I only watch it here and there and only was involved on a regular basis with the Goku Black arc.
