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Mega Evolution was cool, but inherently centralizing and not an interesting gimmick because in 99% of case it was just "X mon got better". The inherent nature of it meant it would always be limited to fan favourites too.
Z-Moves were an attempt to give something to everything but they ultimately were just one-time nukes. The most interesting applications were the fringe cases like Z-Conversion and Z-Splash but these were few and far between. Otherwise it was pretty much just a nuke button which isn't very interesting.
Dynamax was the first gimmick that actually felt genuinely interesting from a gameplay perspective. Deciding your moveset had to consider max moves, and max moves themselves led to more dynamic presence of weather and terrain. As a result both team building and the actual feeling of battles changed. The downside is it was a bit too overtuned and carried too much weight with it. If you managed to make someone burn their dynamax and you still had yours, then you're at an absurdly huge advantage. Gigantamax as a part of this made it a bit of a "best of both worlds" with the visual element of the Pokemons form changing that Megas had.
Tera feels like they're really focusing on having the GAMEPLAY be interesting, it takes what dynamax did and turns the dials down a fair bit, turning it into a one-off playmaker rather than a game decider in its own right. And it does that well - it's good as both an offensive and defensive tool. Gameplay wise it's my favourite gimmick so far albeit I do miss the dynamic weather/terrain setting of Gen 8. That said Tera's probably the fucking dumbest gimmick visually which is a shame.
