It is pretty amazing considering he states in the interview that he has no real care/interest in the "fruit gimmick", only that he has to write around it.

That's right, and boy did he find a way to justify it.

I agree exactly, he is telling one of the most interesting stories I've seen.

I hope in this episode they drop the whole Armor Rider thing and Gaim or Baron Declares himself A Kamen Rider

It's unlikely that this will happen. In all of Heisei, this has only happened three times - Blade, Hibiki, and Decade, and with Decade it was a planned change.

Although the tone of Butcher isn't specifically stated, this was a surprisingly negative interview with him complaining about the fruit motif and how he had to write around it, and how he is a slave to toy release dates.

He's obviously found ways to make it work, and make it work well, but there are clearly aspects to tokusatsu which we play off as jokes, which are actually big deals to those who have to deal with them while trying to tell their story.

i like how they released the genesis driver before it debuted, so kids that have it, it gets them interested on how it's used on the show, plus drives more viewers.

I didn't get so much negativity as I did forthrightness.

I mean, he never says that he doesn't like the fruit motif -- he just says that making fruit heroic was a particular challenge, for which he eventually found an interesting, story-based solution. In fact, the whole series ends up circling the theme he created to justify using fruit. The fruit theme becomes integral to the narrative -- meaning Gaim wouldn't be Gaim without the fruit motif and the themes it generates.

All in all, I think the challenge forced him to be more creative, and we get a better end product as a result. It would be hard for me to believe he doesn't recognize that as well.

Urobuchi is not being negative, he's explaining how life gave him an orange and he made orange juice with it. :D

Yes I've read the article just a what if.