This is my own perspective: the clique leaders secretly hated Jimmy for embarrassing them in front of their goons and the whole school, and wanted revenge in Chapter 5.
That... I like that thought.
I think that Earnest, Johnny, Derby, and Ted are also the main villains of Bully, not just Gary. And really, Gary turns out to be the least important of the five.
I can't agree with that. Johnny cannot be classed as a villain because Jimmy clearly acts on him first for no good reason other than because the plot says so, Derby doesn't give a stuff about any of the politics and probably thinks its beneath him. He's an ass yes but not a villain in the strictest sense. Earnest, possibly but not a very good one and Ted has so little storyline presence aside being the stereotypical jock leader that he's not even worth mentioning.
Furthermore if they were looking for revenge because of their authority within their cliques being undermined beating Gary wouldn't resolve anything at the end of the game, yet it clearly does. The intention was clearly for them to be all played by Gary but its so clumsily done it just doesn't come off right at all.
Also the reboot you pulled out was one of two particular comments on Gary and why he's such a flawed character and how I'll never understand his popularity.
Well, we couldn't really expect a rational Bully plot, seeing as how it was written for 12-year-olds.
Irrelevant and I think the game is rated higher then that, it is at least in this country, 15+ if I'm not mistaken. I've seen great stories for things intended for 8 years or less. The most obvious example that comes to mind is the 2003 series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That had quite an interesting and even deep storyline at times (when it wasn't doing silly comic book super hero like based spin offs).
I just find it so incredibly odd that you have characters so detailed with loads of little details, each with their own backstories, things like Kirby's foot fetish and 'i'm totally not gay', Duncan's nerdy background and wish to fit in society or Ricky's girl problems. You can paint a lot of pictures with those things alone and they don't even come up in the main plot. Yet the main plot is full of plotholes and the villain is incredibly underdeveloped, it's just comes off as really odd to me...