You guys have to look at one thing:

First off let me say that Dragonball is my favorite series and always will be. It was the first anime I ever watched in the original format way before it became popular here. Not only did the problem occur with the anime cathcing up to the manga, but Akira Toriyama himself stated that he wanted to end the seiries many times. His original plan was to end it after they found the 7 dragonballs. He also wanted to end it after the Freeza saga, and again at the Cell saga. The reason he continued it was because of its popularity and people encouraging him to. This is also a reason why there are a lot of plot holes. Almost every show has been compared to Dragonball also, I don't know why, and i never agree.

If you want to see a big similarity, take a look at Hunter x Hunter(which I can't wait for the new OVA). I started watching both around the same time and you see many similarities. They are still two completely different animes. At the moment, Naruto and Hunter x Hunter are my two favorite animes running.

The truth is this will never be settled. For every person that has a reason to like Dragonball there is another that has a reason to hate. It happens to a lot of good animes.