the only problem with one piece's art in the beginning was that luffy's mouth was freakishly cavernous when he yelled. it used to freak me out, but i got over it quickly and it became one of my favorite series. all the other characters looked fine, Zoro and Nami especially. if t been hamstrung by censorship, if the show had premiered on cartoon network instead of the fox box, it would be a show that is spoken of in the same breath as Naruto in america. the pairing would have been one piece and naruto, not naruto and bleach. it wasn't initially as edgy as the others, but it was a lot of fun from the get-go. even a in initially lackluster reception with a proper dub and stage would have been better than what we got.
though, ironically sometimes I think FUNimaion's One Piece dub wouldn't be as stellar as it is now if they didn't feel the intense need to make up for how One Piece was treated by 4 kids.