As much as I will always dislike Sailor Moon for the general stupidity of the series and especially its main character, I will forever love Hotaru.
While I personally love it, I feel like the anime definitely kept Usagi's stupidity for way too long for the sake of dragging out the anime. Also, the changes made to the anime were kinda ridiculous, especially in SM Stars with the Sailor Starlights being males then turning female after transformation (like wtf?!?).
For the second notion, I agree wholeheartedly. Hotaru is best outer senshi and I might even say the best one. Haruka and Michiru were huge assholes in SM Super so I didn't like them. Setsuna was more bearable but still didn't like the fact that she was pretty okay with killing a 12 year old child. Though mostly it's because she was such a cinnamon roll and a great friend to Chibiusa.