>>37442401Everybody's already posted about how the opponents aren't catching up, so I'll comment on some other stuff
>Breedingnobody breeds for egg moves in a casual run, anon
>Tutors in gen 3+If I'm remembering correctly, tutors can be a pain to use thanks to shard requirements. If that's the case, I'm fine with it, as you have to actively work towards the buff.
>Infinite TMs in gen 5+I honestly agree that this is a problem to a certain extent. I'd fix it by making them finite until you beat the Champion, and then giving the player either access to a TM shop that sells every TM, or some sort of tool that lets them use any TM an infinite amount of time (including ones that are already used)
>Movepools being the only causeI disagree. Stat distribution has become a lot more effective as of recent - some minmax-esque mons have always existed, but in lesser numbers, and even then, a lower percentage had the types/abilities/items to take advantage of them.
>Infernape being the exampleInfernape is a starter mon that the average player will choose without being very informed. For that reason, I think it's perfectly fine for it to be universally effective and for it to have a wide variety of options, so that the player is not immediately railroaded because of a bad decision. A better example would be Toucannon, which gets a silly amount of coverage (5 types including STAB via level up, 4 more via TM, and 1 more via tutor) for an early route shitmon.
That being said, this isn't inherently a bad thing. Early gens were plagued with frustrating stat/move distribution, like no Poison STAB Venusaur and no Leech Seed Meganium. If mons have weak distributions, they'll feel weak and frustrating regardless of how good they are relative to others.
In short, along with obvious opponent updates, mons should have slightly (emphasis on "slightly") more conservative stats/movepools, and TMs should be made finite before the postgame. That should be enough to fix any problems.