>>43529330I've actually come to accept HMs.
>>43529343 kinda explains it, they were actually good in concept, you don't need all of your move slots, and you never need all HMs at once either. I just assign them to team members and it's usually ok, it sacrifices battle utility for exploration utility.
The REAL issue with HMs is that things like cut and rock smash are just "remove obstacle and continue" I feel like more Hms should be like flash, where you can choose to ignore it and have a harder time navigating, or use it and have an easier time navigating at the cost of a moveslot or pokemon, or be like strength, where there can be actual thought provoking puzzles with it (Tho even strength isn't super well utilized and is just a cut and rocksmash reskin in gen 5 and 6).
Something like cut being used to cut vines in a temple where depending on which vines you cut it can trigger traps or cause a chain reaction that effects what order you progress in the dungeon. If more HMs worked like that people wouldn't have hated them, and even more so if they were mostly used for optional exploration, so people who truly hate them can mostly ignore them
