what do you brehs consider good/great design?
Me personally, as someone that went to a art school, the silhouette being strong, strong primary colors, the type of shapes used within the characters, boxes, spheres, squares, triangles.
Same reason why ninja turtles are great designs that no matter how many times you iterate on them they still work.
Think about all the characters you liked drawing growing up. Even when you break certain characters down into simple shapes they still look recognizable
I think a lot of people attribute great design to popularity after the fact