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There's a lot of things that would've made this a contender for most solid potential ending in the series that I've thought about.
First of all, the most obvious reason would be the consequences. If you don't lead into the necessary continuation of the Dragon Balls returning, leaving them inert not only makes it the end of Dragon Ball in a literal sense, but also makes all of the deaths in the arc permanent and thus one of consequences. Whilst you could say the Saiyan Arc had that potentially, it already established Dragon Balls on Namek as a silver lining. Ending it here would offer a bittersweet ending that would offer some catharsis.
Next, was the increase in scale. Along with the well done and gradual tonal shift from a comedy to a serious action series, the climactic battle of this arc is the only one in which the collateral damage felt like it meant something in showing how far above previous characters Goku and Piccolo were more so than mere words could. Not only was the destructive feats part of it, but what the power ups were in relation to the characters. The Choshinsui was meant to unleash Goku's inner potential and Piccolo Daimao's full power was so great using it would deplete his lifespan. When considering they ended up becoming ants by the time of the Saiyan Arc alone, the power creep of taking things further than this made these two power ups feel meaningless in retrospect when we never saw someone such as Freeza cut his lifespan by using 100%.
There would indeed be some good elements that would be lost by ending it here. The Saiyan Arc had the best character writing and development out of the arcs (aside from perhaps Hunt for the Dragon Balls Arc due to its consistency and subversion of the typical heroic band), mainly due to Piccolo and Gohan, and was a good way of opening the scale further through bringing it to a cosmic level. Even then, however, the problems of it and the following arc not having anywhere near as much potential permanent repercussions and as already mentioned, the Choshinsui and Daimao's full power still feeling meaningless. Overall, this may have been the most consistent high note ending for the series (without major rewrites, at least) and would've helped the overall quality of the Daimao Arc as well.
Thoughts?
First of all, the most obvious reason would be the consequences. If you don't lead into the necessary continuation of the Dragon Balls returning, leaving them inert not only makes it the end of Dragon Ball in a literal sense, but also makes all of the deaths in the arc permanent and thus one of consequences. Whilst you could say the Saiyan Arc had that potentially, it already established Dragon Balls on Namek as a silver lining. Ending it here would offer a bittersweet ending that would offer some catharsis.
Next, was the increase in scale. Along with the well done and gradual tonal shift from a comedy to a serious action series, the climactic battle of this arc is the only one in which the collateral damage felt like it meant something in showing how far above previous characters Goku and Piccolo were more so than mere words could. Not only was the destructive feats part of it, but what the power ups were in relation to the characters. The Choshinsui was meant to unleash Goku's inner potential and Piccolo Daimao's full power was so great using it would deplete his lifespan. When considering they ended up becoming ants by the time of the Saiyan Arc alone, the power creep of taking things further than this made these two power ups feel meaningless in retrospect when we never saw someone such as Freeza cut his lifespan by using 100%.
There would indeed be some good elements that would be lost by ending it here. The Saiyan Arc had the best character writing and development out of the arcs (aside from perhaps Hunt for the Dragon Balls Arc due to its consistency and subversion of the typical heroic band), mainly due to Piccolo and Gohan, and was a good way of opening the scale further through bringing it to a cosmic level. Even then, however, the problems of it and the following arc not having anywhere near as much potential permanent repercussions and as already mentioned, the Choshinsui and Daimao's full power still feeling meaningless. Overall, this may have been the most consistent high note ending for the series (without major rewrites, at least) and would've helped the overall quality of the Daimao Arc as well.
Thoughts?
