I dont understand why. In almost every episode Optimus is ready and willing to put his life on the line to save his crew, but Rodimus all he does is critisize his leadership and he's always ready to give it to somebody else as he regrets that he became leader. Why is that? Whats so special between Optimus and Rodimus?
Because you're seeing two different characters at different points in their leadership careers. Optimus Prime had been the leader for millions of years, you're seeing him at the end of that time when he's been the leader probably for so long he can probably only barely remember not being the leader. He's become well suited to it and all the responsibilties that come with it. Rodimus Prime is as brand new as it gets. What makes it worse is that leadership was entirely thrust upon him; it's much like the movie Big or other age switching movies in a way, in that he essentially went from being a teenager who's a junior in high school to being 45 years old with a wife, 3 kids, a very rough job, car payments on 2 cars, and a mortgage overnight. Of course he's going to have a very rough time of it and long to be the junior in high school again. Of course he's not going to be as good as Optimus was at the end of Optimus' career. The biggest shame about Rodimus Prime is that when he finally comes to terms with being the leader, the very next episode has him handing leadership back to Optimus. Even in Headmasters he wasn't leader for very long before setting off for new horizons; we never see Rodimus be the experienced and great leader he was going to become with time.
I still reckon Burden Hardest to Bear was supposed to be earlier in the episode list. There's a few episodes before it that have Rodimus being much more sure of himself. Rodimus as a character is far better than Optimus, who is almost always presented as being infallible. He's written much better in the Marvel comics he appears in and is a good leader for the few episodes of Headmasters he's in.
Rodimus doesn't deserve that much flak. He's in my opinion a charecter ahead of his time, the young rookie leader with the lack of self confidence. If they had Burden Hardest to Bear and Dark Awakening imidiatley at the begining of Season 3. Rodimus would have been a badass leader for the short time till Optimus came back.