Starting to think that popularity is an objective metric of how good a pokemon design is. The world is full of individuals, each with differing subjective preferences on what makes a design good. But if a pokemon gains far more fans than a less popular mon, something about its overall design simply clicks with a wider array of people than the other mon's design did.

Basically, popularity decides how good or bad a design is. And although contrarians will always exist, their opinion will get drowned out and outweighed by the majority.