>>47911283She is just a recycled Lass, her first ever concept was a female trainer for the posters, not an MC.
You can often see those socks on Lass trainer class. Her "personality" was eventually set by the writers for Masters where she just talks about nature and pokemon friendship, recycled stuff from LGPE, her special skin colors is also a generic Camper Girl recolor. Leaf is an example of NPC trainer class representative.
When people call her bland it is because she was indeed an existing recycled character who was slightly customized and not naturally born with the intent of having a relevant role.
The FRLG Lass and Lady classes aren't that far from her design wise either.