>>37798260They make the designs with very simplified bodies and with overcomplex patterns for the sake of toys. Essentially, they try to have their cake and eat it too by pandering to genwunners and their love of the original designs, while designing all the new starters with a very different, toyetic style that is maximized by marketing to sell merch. As some people have pointed out but not capitalized on, it's the worst with stage 1 designs, particularly the starters, and it's not really hard to understand why when you look at the toys. Basically, stage ones, and starters, all sell the most merch and so are most marketed to make good toys. Evolutions tend to be free of that expectation so they can afford to be less toyetic with them, but the new style still impacts them largely in the overly complex patterns and the weird, plasticy, molded-looking accessory details a lot (but not all) of them have.
The simple body, complex pattern look lends itself best to plushies, by the way, which tend to move the most merch. Evolved pokemon are typically too complex for that and mostly get sold in plastic form, probably influencing the molded, plastic-looking accessories some have.
