HGSS has a lot of problems that everyone seems to give it a free pass on

Unnecessary story changes that abruptly stop your progress
>Have to beat Sprout Tower now before you fight Falkner
>Have to get a radio card before you fight Whitney
>Lyra forcibly gives you a tour of the Day-care
>Can't even go onto route 40 without a man telling you that you need Surf, something self-evident by the fact that you don't have Surf
>Red worship all throughout Kanto
>Being forced to encounter the version mascot
>Being forced to deal with the Kimono Girls prattling on
>Increased frequency of Pokegear calls

It also had a lot of anti-QOL changes
>Replacing Game Corner with Voltorb Flip but not letting you buy coins directly
>Headbutt pokemon are chosen based on tree instead of having a percent chance across the entire route
>8 HMs. Since these were remakes some areas that were redesigned (ie Mt. Silver) did not need to incorporate all of the HMs. They chose to anyways, making the fight with Red more difficult because you needed an HM slave to get to him.
>Unlocking Gym Leader rematches is arcanely difficult without a strategy guide
>Chose not to use pokemon lists from Crystal (ex: Teddiursa in Dark Cave) that helped diversify the region

There were balancing problems that could have been addressed by virtue of the remake
>Johto level curve is fucked because they intentionally made what order you can do Chuck/Jasmine/Pryce in non-linear. Why not just have stuff on the other side of Mt. Mortar be stronger and use that as a natural deterrent?
>Kanto Gym Leader level curve also fucked
>Rebattling trainers takes concerted effort
>Many of the new types introduced in the gen are only found in Kanto (particularly fire types).

If you think about it, HGSS sowed the seeds for a lot of the shit we harp on XY/ORAS/SM/USUM for

I'm not saying this is a bad game, it has a lot of polish and care and if it's your favorite its probably deserved. But it's not the best remake.