MI takes forever to get anywhere (with the romance) too! Small increments 
  about once every dozen shows... at least for the first half. I gather 
  that the real reason for the difference between the first and second 
  Ranma series was ratings. 

Hmmm; perhaps.  I take the MI manga as canon (it's significantly
better than the anime adaptation), and while you have a point, I think
the advance is much steadier, and by much greater increments.

No disagreement at all. I was just pointing out that, even though MI is 
much more the romance, it still takes forever to get anywhere. I'm only 
on episode 48 or something, and if I see Mitaka and Godai go through 
exactly the same charade they do every few episodes I'm going to go 
insane. Thank goodness for the "I'll wait for a year" episode...