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Hot take on why many new designs suck dick: from a critic, not a nostalgiafag.
As OP pointed out, pokemon are turning from beast themes into job themes. This is especially obvious with starters from gen 6 onward. This is different, but not inherently bad. What makes is bad is that those jobs don't exist in the lore anywhere.
Machop line -> carry heavy objects in RS intro and flatten construction sites in GSC vermillion city -> good
Incineroar line -> fake wrester -> fake wrestling does not exist anywhere in Pokemon -> bad
Cinderace -> football/soccer star -> there is no instance ingame where teams of cinderace try to kick a ball in the other's goal -> bad
