It seems Okada has an annoying tendency to take something funny and drive that joke into the ground to the point of obnoxiousness. The crossdressing thing is the most blatant example, starting with a disturbing but funny Oscar but leading into this. But it's the kind of crap that sunk Hana Saku Iroha badly by excessive poking fun at the characters and just humiliating them for the sake of it. It's funny to see Minko act stupidly belligerent ineffectually towards Ohana, screaming "die", but it's not nearly as amusing the 12th time around. It shows a lack of respect and control. Anohana only did that, but they just decided to stick with Tsurukko making fun of Yukiatsu.
I mean really, HSI is arguably her greatest waste of potential, since its themes are actually potentially deeper than the other two works I consider most indicative. The main character is the most interesting. But no, she has to hand in scripts with an evil smirk on her face leading the staff to groan.
Well, that and she had to write up more sensational stuff to sell the series I understand, but still. But come on, Anohana was sincere mostly and didn't need any gimmicks (except that one) to go far-- just straight up writing and punching the viewer in the gut with emotions.
My other thought as I've had for a while is that she has a tendency to perform poorly in the last quarter which makes many an ending of hers inferior to the parts before. AnoHana is of course the lead in example, but True Tears had quite an earthquake near the end as well. She doesn't seem to be able to wrong a long story without losing focus. And for this to show up in the tail end of Lupin just kinda reinforces this. It's sorta like "I don't know what to do, here's some crossdressing LOLZ" but the real kicker is someone had to approve of this. And we know she's better than that. But either due to laziness, malicousness, or a lapse of judgement, this happened.
At this rate, we'll just remember her as a decent writer with strange tendencies, but you know, what comes up must go down.
Honestly I find her style of writing in the more zany moments not too far from how I post on forums where I post almost anything on my mind just because I can deliver some amusement for myself. But you need to have more restraint at work damn it!