I can’t speak for people who are in Pokemon for the competitive side, but having a new gimmick mon each gen who would get their own episode in the anime and their own toy or marshmallow cereal shape was a part of the whole experience between 1997 and 2003.
I actually feel kinda bad now for kids whose first road block is, “Please don’t walk here, my Stoutland isn’t done sniffing the ground for items.” (I guess RBE had this too with “sketch my own footprints guy,” but there wasn’t a later roadblock mon in SM to make up for it the way Kecleon did.)
