That bit was still stupid for me. He'd spent like 170 episodes helping the good guys by that point, he helped them fight the Ginyu Force and Frieza, he helped fight the Androids, he helped train Future Trunks, he was basically the reason Gohan managed to beat Cell, he helped to deal with Babidi and the ones in his spaceship, but then they have to give him a big dramatic moment where he blows himself up and finally redeems himself?
He just goes pop, it does nothing, and then Goku pops along and is like "lol I totally had a new transformation all along".