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I think the difference falls to a design paradigm. Early gen pokemon looked more like wild animals. There were certain exceptions like Machoke and Jynx but overall everything looked biological if that makes sense. Moltres looked like a bird. What made it legendary was that it was constantly on fire. Which isn't outside the norm because the Charmander line is also constantly on fire. Is Lugia actually controlling storms or is that a legend because a fisherman happened to see a rare pokemon pass by as a bad storm was ending while he was at sea. It's easy to see older gen pokemon have their own habitats because their defining features are things used for survival. Like Nidorinos poisonous horns or Geodude being indistinguishable from a normal rock until it reveals itself.
Which is why people say new gen pokemon are for marketing. Scorbunny has a bandaid on its nose probably to make it look like a football player. So are ALL Scorbunny born with that bandaid? Zacian has a sword that it carries around. So do ALL Zacian find a sword to carry around or is there an order of wolf knights that we don't know about? Because while a wolf carrying a sword looks cool it looks less like a wild animal and more a toy.
That's why they're called digimon. Digimon can be animals but they also have fully sentient animals with their own societies and laws. That's why you have dinosaurs who are also knights and gods that other Digimon worship. Pokemon is not supposed to be that, it's supposed to be man coexisting with nature. Once you say that Pokemon are just as smart as people it becomes abhorrent to use them strictly for battling and keep them in your pocket at all other times.
And yes I do put too much thought into a series made for children.
