To be fair, the homophobia bit wasn't outright homophobia. He wasn't being discriminatory, just uneducated, and it makes sense for him to be so given the culture of the time. It took him a single issue to get his head on right and the worst thing he did was act a little awkward around Piper when Piper came out -- a very realistic scenario -- before it was all friendly by the end of the same issue. There was no outward hate, mostly just awkwardness that led to brief uncomfortability. It's actually a funny exchange because Piper and Wally are musing on the very heavily queer coded history of villains before Wally wonders if there's any actually gay supervillains, and Piper comes out to him. It's a bit of a surprise on top of everything.
And we're talking about the late 80s/early 90s here. This predates Northstar coming out over at Marvel. It was absurdly progressive for its time, and I felt did a great job showing people who might be in the same situation as Wally. Good people, who mean well, who are unfamiliar, uneducated, and given a chance can come around as friends and allies. Pied Piper coming out as gay is one of the biggest reasons Flash is my favorite franchise. This just was not a thing in superhero comics when it happened.
But yeah no worries on the Baron take. Just for reference, Baron's sexism was pretty atrocious. Like even for the time it was pretty outright awful and I'm not sure how it got past DC's editors (I mean, I CAN imagine how -- they didn't care, but still). There's a pretty infamous page that gets passed around for people to meme about/hate on Wally with from the first annual, where he basically goes on an aggressively misogynistic rant you can hear coming straight out of Baron's brain and into Wally's words.
And yeah I agree, flirtacious hot head is all well and good for a younger Wally. Lines up with WML, Giffen, and I guess even Baron despite my distaste for the man.
edit: here we go, wasn't too hard to find the page
baronwally.jpg