>>39793183>Appearing for 3 seconds out of nowhere is not much better than appearing only 3 seconds in their gymEven in that retarded exaggeration you are wrong. Appearing in the world and having an effect for a tiny snapshot, is much better than them being chained to the ground in a gym doing nothing while huge events happen outside. Because doing the latter means they don't feel like real people who have an effect on the world, they could be a robot and nothing would change. Appearing outside their gym, helping you with plasma, helping you travel or whatever makes it seem like they are actually an important figure in the town.
And they do take it pretty far with some of them, Cheren appears a lot in BW2, even showed up in the post game. Some events required the gym leader to exist, you can't progress without Skyla taking you to Lentimas and later is how you get to the nature preserve. Even having them all fight the Seven Sages in BW1 makes them appear to be a real force in the world and not just a badge dispenser.
