One thing I don't think helps Dolnero is his design. I think his design makes him come across as goofy. In a way, the show undermines how dangerous the character can potentially be by making him look so cutesy and fly by the power of his farts. But I never really felt like he seemed head villain-like, either. The bulky design might suggest Brando, but he doesn't seem like The Godfather. He actually seems indifferent to a lot of what goes on around him. Throw in how useless Lira is and how Gien is off doing his own thing in the corner, and Timeranger often feels pretty villainless to me. (I like a big group of villains; Kobayashi likes that three villain set-up.)
Ransik's not perfect, and Vernon Wells' performance goes all over the place as the show goes on, but it helped having a face villain, and that he's supposed to be a bit gruesome. (I don't like the show's cowardly redemption of him, though.)
And I do prefer the Steelix episode, because it's more interesting that he was a dirty cop that Jen struggled to turn in versus his Timeranger counterpart just being an obsessed stalker of Yuuri's. Jen was more believable as a cop than Yuuri was, but her ratting on her partner further shaded in why she once said she was disillusioned with the job and about to quit being a cop until she met Alex. Abel might have been voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa, but I remember his suit actor making some really silly choices that ruined for me just what a crazy threat Abel was supposed to be.
And I have to say, I never really cared for the Domon-Honami thing, either. We already had the love story that was going to be ruined by the seperation of time with Red and Pink. But also, Honami's casting ruined the story of any strength, and the carelessness on Domon's part in leaving a kid behind raises a lot of problems, not least of which is that it's a bigger crime to the timeline than anything the Londarz did. (That said, I still managed to like his Gokaiger episode, dammit...)
AND, I know I'm in the minority on this one, but Timeranger's BGM always drove me up the wall. I just don't like Koichiro Kameyama's work. (Deka's BGM also gets on my nerves.) But Time Force's music wasn't any better. That was the point where PR's BGM was always really super-kiddy sounding. How do you go from those great, crazy, guitar-driven early soundtracks to crap that sounds like it should be in Bobby's World?
And now Shougo senses he'll be yelled at for going off-topic.