>>24722656Back then they were only concerned about filling a region. The thoughts of competition or balance or interesting types/abilities/decent bsts
POWERCREEP simply hadn't been considered whatsoever.
Abilities in Gen3 and Phys/Spec split in Gen4 changed everything, and while new fresh mons of Gen 3 had a lot of strong contenders and interesting types, Gen2 pokes simply couldnt compete (except of course your cross evos of Gen 1 and later evos, which are all specifically improved from their original)
Basically, Gen 2 is just an expansion of Gen1 right before competitive play was even remotely considered.