I think I gave it a fair run, I got deep in the Skypiea arc but I just stopped caring so had to drop it. It's a shame because it did have moments where it intrigued me like the whole seven pirate gods and world government but the Straw Hats get distracted and go off on these side adventures and they sometimes last hundreds of pages.

The majority of the arcs have the same structure where Luffy goes to a new town or island, beats up the local villain and moves on. A couple of arcs did this differently and were the better ones but it just wasn't enough, repetitive stop-starts kept killing momentum before it could build up.

Don't expect a HunterXHunter where it switches the genre and tone in each arc because it doesn't happen, not in the first 250 chapters anyway and everything blurs together, the exception being the Alabastor arc which had a different setting, structure and the only intimidating villain at that point in the story.

The characters have cool designs and I did grow attached to them but they were way too overpowered and got out of scuffles far too easily without any losses. I don't think a single named character died so it was hard to feel any tension during fight scenes because I knew everything would turn out just fine.

For me One Piece is a manga that had a promising setting and premise but it never gets fully capitalised on. A shame because it's loved by so many others, I think it could have been much better if the mangaka didn't drag the story out so much and took more risks in his story telling rather than taking the safe options.