Why were they so soulless before the DLC?

Even the other "bad" games had a bunch of soulful things like
>XY had Amie, the autumn parts of the region and most of the music
>ORAS had Soaring, nu-Team Aqua and the fight against Deoxys
>SM had Ultra Beasts, the Totem fights and most of the characters
>USUM had the Ultra Space worlds and the several sidequests
>even LGPE had things like the rival getting the Cubone from Lavender and a bigger role for Jessie and James

Meanwhile the most soulful thing about SwSh is probably the AWOOOOs in that one theme

Thank god we got the DLC with based Mustard and Calyrex otherwise these games would be unsalvageable