You say you feel Season 7 does the best job at mixing plot, humour and emotion so... where do you stand on Season 4?
I feel S4 is the one that does everything perfectly.
New Kid on the Block, Duffless, Homer's Triple Bypass, Lisa the Beauty Queen are all episodes that mix the above statements together seamlessly and there are gag/plot heavy episodes like Marge vs The Monorail and Mr Plow and emotion heavy episodes like I Love Lisa and Lisa's First Word.