There was a bit of stability.

I could tell that the books were going to be random globs of soap opera from then on. Lee, Nicieza, whoever it was who wrote that, had no idea who these characters were.

(Looking it up, it turned out to be Scott Lobdell, from whom I have never read a decent, well-written thing. One of those writers the credits serve to keep the reader from wasting money upon.)

I think the real problem of that era was Bob Harras. He seemed hell-bent on running Claremont off, and then once Claremont was gone, he himself had no plan or vision for the books. And in my opinion, he didn't seem to place much importance on hiring qualified writers with vision, either.

My new, mutant character would be called "Clod". Clod would have the ability to control the soil. Dirt, rocks, clay, mud, etc. 

Since he'd be a student at the school, I think it would be a lot of fun to watch Clod slowly learn how to use this power. Perhaps initially the manifestation would only be some very crude effect. His ability would feel like a curse, because when he was stressed, he'd inadvertently cause tremors and sinkholes to appear. He'd have no control over this, becuase he wouldn't even understand what he was doing. But over time, under Professor Xavier's tutelage, and a fair amount of study of geology and pedology, he'd learn stuff. We'd get to watch him try and fail, and occasionally learn something new and succeed.

When the New Mutants book first came out, I thought Claremont did a pretty good job of giving the students limitations to their powers that they had to struggle with. Sam couldn't steer, Bobby was strong but not invulnerable, and since he was solar charged, had a finite limit to the amount of energy he could expend. Dani's power was very unreliable. He lost track of it himself, and later writers didn't even bother, but I thought for a book that was in a school setting, it was a good story idea to give them something to aspire to and watch them learn. Rather than have Clod be just like the New Teen Titans' Terra, I'd rather watch the character learn very slowly and stay away from the fancy effects.