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To further elucidate: starters should be a partner that you can trust to get you out of tight spots, but not something you know will win you every battle.
Infernape suffers from having too much going for it, since it has fantastic coverage, stats and typing. Emboar doesn't have enough going for it. Empoleon has too much going for it, Samurott does not. Serperior breaks the mold by being more reliable than it's predecessor, but still heavily outclassed.
When your starter is outclassed HEAVILY by a Pokemon found within the first 3/4ths of the game, something is way, way, way out of order. I can sort of understand Samurott being outclassed by Starmie, since it comes in so late, but the fact that there is a better version of the starter on ROUTE 4 is appalling.
