People are a bit too harsh on Superchargers. It's advertising absolutely sucked, but the game itself was good. The racing mode was solid, Tessa's quests were great, the soundtrack was great, the plot was EXCELLENT, and the levels were unique. The one major flaw that holds it back is the lack of deep on-foot gameplay in the major levels. I definitely have a soft spot for racing games due to my skill in Mario Kart, but I can say with an unbiased opinion that Superchargers was a decent game; not the best skylanders game, but a good game nonetheless. I don't get much of the hate for Imaginators either. It has its flaws like every game, but it's one of the most expansive Skylanders games yet in terms of combat and exploration, and it makes up for Superchargers' flaws despite its sloppy story.
No, people aren't harsh ENOUGH on SC. Beyond the fact that it killed the franchise (debatable, but strong enough of a stance TO debate), it had the pacing of Swap Force (read horrible), the driving was BLOODY TERRIBLE...like the thing you set your hat on was horrible due to controls...I'm a grown man and I coudkn't control the vehicles consistently thanks to the "relative" directions. The forced boss fights using vehicles were 50% fight and 50% "Jane GET ME OFF THIS CRAZY THING". The reposes were imaginative - and some looked good, but ultimatly instead of new characters - they were still rehashes of characters some of us already had 4+ figures of. The levels were long so they could flesh out the use of vehicles, but the combat was light and not dense at ALL...making the game 90% exploration and piuzle solving - i.e. nothing with replay value.
If you like it, that's perfectly OK, but the strong dislike for it has significant merit. Its a shame that Imaginators fixed most of the major issues, but hasn't gotten a fair shake BECAUSE of SC. Reposes? None. Fake reposes? None. Levels suitable length. Combat, MUCH denser, much more active and rewarding. Annoying NPCs - reduced. Now, the plot is a HUGE step down I admit, but I never really play these for plot anyway. So far I've had more replay from SI than SC (though neither touches TT, Kaos mode > all).
As for character balance, I can't speak for SC, once I beat it I stopped (I still have characters in the plastic that just aren't worth reselling), but previously each entry - the new characters just DESTROYED the old characters. Its the "incentive" factor.
-Unreall