Remove the laugh track, and Ross is a full blown narcissistic sociopath…

Yeah, we all saw that video, mate. It only makes him look like that, because hes pausing for the audience laughter. Its a sitcom... I dont really know what you expect. You take away the LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE and everyone looks like a nutjob.

But even Ben seems to vanish in the later seasons.

You can blame the Sprouse brothers getting more work for that, I would assume. Theres strict laws around how many hours a kid can work, and those kids were starting to gain popularity doing a couple of movies a year. Getting the schedules to line up was probably the main reason. But yeah, it was odd to see not see him show up again. But he was mentioned, most notably in jokes about his absence. Like when Jack says Emma is his first grandchild.

Phoebe is a manipulative bitch who uses quirkiness as an excuse to toy with people.

Rachel is a spoiled disorganized mess

Yes, that was the start of her character arc... You have seen character arcs before, right? You start off at one place. Have a few experiences, make some good and bad choices, learn from those experiences and then ultimately grow into a new version of the character? Does having flaws make a character bad? Some would say that flawed characters are the best characters. For example, Kim Wexler is a deeply flawed character, and one of the best of recent memory.

Chandler regularly uses sarcasm to poke at his friends’ insecurities and belittle them, and masks all of his insecurities with self-deprecating humor instead of actually working to better himself.

Same answer as Rachel.

Monica’s obsessive need for control regularly leads her to manipulate or bully others, and consistently overshadows her empathy.

See Rachel again.

Joey was too good for the rest of the characters. His only real emotional flaw was that he never really had any deep romantic connections.

Did you even watch the show?

Also, the show was ultimately about six rich white people, who occasionally cosplayed as relatable lower middle class folk. In a city as diverse as NYC, you would have to work to find a city block so completely deprived of melanin

So, white people cant be friends with only white people? Thats kinda racist, isnt it? Its not like there wasnt any other black people on the show. In the first season monica works with and is friends with a black woman. She just isnt part of the main cast. Do you have the same complaints about Living Single? Or the Fresh Prince? Or any of the other completely black casts of 90s sitcoms? Ill be you dont, cos Reddit never told you to...

They also very clearly lived in a nice part of the city, (some have estimated that Monica’s apartment would run for ~$3-4M when the show was airing) and their financial struggles were only ever superficial to make them more relatable.

So, Im guessing you just got all of this from Reddit? Cos theres loads of reasons not to like friends, and you havent hit any of them. What you have done is hit every single popular thing to say on reddit. Including reddits uncanny ability to miss the mark on all of them. The answer to the apartment was "rent control" and "subletting the apartment from Monicas grandmother". Things that were brought up in the show REGULARLY. If you really wanted to challenge the cost of living, you would have picked Joey. As he was an out of work actor in a non rent controlled apartment. But even that was addressed by the fact that Chandler basically paid for everything and Joey owed him a fuck load of money. But Joey is the easy one to go after in this complaint, not Monica and Rachel. But reddit users are dumb as fuck, so there you have it.

Honestly, its the racism in your post thats so very disturbing. That white people MUST have a token black friend, or they are considered racist.

In a city as diverse as NYC, you would have to work to find a city block so completely deprived of melanin.

Greenwich Village(where friends is set) is part of Community District 2. And in the 90s CD2 had a population of 94,105. Of that, 2,941 (3.1 %) were non‑Hispanic Black/African American. So... no. It wasnt that diverse. Not where Friends was set. You need to go back to Reddit, bro beans. Youre stinking up the place with incorrect nonsense. Have a great day!