yeah, the dissolution era doesn't really count because the intent was to bring the cast back together. And no way were Storm and Wolverine ever going to leave the X-Men as long as he was writing. While Kitty, Kurt and Rachel were always at least in Excalibur, not being primed for "retirement"
In fairness to him, I think his favoritism is less obvious because naturally the X-Men wasn't much of a franchise before he got hold of it and he provided a LOT of stable additions to the cast. He at least cared enough about Scott and Jean to write a lengthy arc for them before writing them out, and I feel he'd have happily used Hank more if he'd been able to. Warren, Bobby and Lorna though...lol what'd they do to piss him off.