Archaeopteryx and Dino-Bird Evolution

In its most important feature, namely flight feathers, archaeopteryx is no less of a bird than modern birds. I agree that it is peculiar and does display features which appear reptilian. But there is no evidence that it wasn't as powerful a flyer as a modern bird. If it were alive today, it would be classified as a bird. By the way, three living birds today have claws on their wings and are still considered true birds. If archaeopteryx is the best evolutionists can come up with for transitional forms, their argument is weak indeed.
The problem with evolutionists is that they minimize the need for transitional species, when the ToE demands literally millions of them in the past.
My suggestion is to stop fixating on one or two questionable examples and look at what the present and the past show... that nature is fundamentally discontinuous. There are enormous differences between birds and reptiles, and it would have required at least tens of thousands of functional transitional forms to bridge the gap. You suppose that they existed but you have no proof and you can't even construct hypothetical intermediate forms. I've noticed a conspicuous lack of illustrations in the literature of transitional species of, for example, between reptiles and birds, land mammals to cetaceans, bat precursors, etc. This is because evolutionists prefer to speak in very vague terms, glossing over critical details. They know perfectly well that any attempt to actually visualize a functional transitional forms that would preferentially survive by natural selection would be so laughable that all credibility in ToE would plummit.