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Good post, but a few points I wanted to talk about.
>Also of note was the fact that tight move availability was built into the system and accommodated for; all TMs were supposed to be attainable only the once, which meant the expectation was that most monsters would use Normal moves as their bread-and-butter if their type moves weren't effective on the situation.
I think this is how most Pokemon should be on paper, with their natural learn sets giving them some decent type-moves along with a couple of standard Normal attacks and maybe a wildcard inclusion here or there. The problem with the implementation is that a lot of the time, a lot of Pokemon just don't get any of those aforementioned type-moves. In order to get even mediocre (>40 BP) STAB options, a lot of Pokemon have to rely purely on TMs (the Sandslash, Nidos, Parasect, Poliwrath, Rapidash, Magneton, Electrode, Exeggutor, Hitmonchan, Rhydon, Tangela, and Jynx evolutionary lines ALL require TMs for STAB, and this list doesn't include Water or Flying mons who have access to Surf and Fly as their only decent STAB option), while some Pokemon just straight up don't have any access at all to decent STAB, like Aerodactyl and Kabutops who don't learn a single Rock-type move, every Poison-type besides Weezing/Muk because they don't learn Sludge, the only >40 BP Poison-type move in the game, or Scyther, where its 1st-best STAB attack is a 35 BP Wing Attack and its 2nd-best STAB attack doesn't exist. It's a lot harder to use your single-use Thunderbolt TM on something like a Clefable or a Starmie when mons like Magneton and Electrode absolutely need it in order to see any kind of success.
