>>44066563Professors became irrelevant as characters the moment their research no longer mattered to the focus of the games.The two reasons why people latched onto Oak so hard while more or less completely ignoring every other professor after was A. the sheer privilege of being the first and B. helping Oak complete his Pokedex was the entire objective of Kanto. Taking the gym challenge and becoming Champion was just a detour. Every game since, that's been the main attraction.