User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 439: Albareth Empire, Review./@comment-1776824-20150608225247/@comment-3290324-20150608232724

If we are talking about this in an in-universe way, then yes, it would be the responsible thing for Erza to do to stay and lead the guild. However, Fairy Tail isn't real and you can't ignore the out-of-universe perspective. And a main character sitting out an arc is very unusual and very unsatisfying for that main character's fans. Natsu has more fights than any other character in this series, but he can't and never will sit out an arc because he's a main character. And that's just not a reasonable expectation. And frankly, you don't have to sideline the main characters to give the side characters good fights. Take the Tartarus arc for example. Erza and Mirajane (a main character and a side character) both had fights in the arc, but... their fights were sucky. The issue wasn't too many characters. The issue was that Mashima wrote poor fights. :/