Is Johto the worst, most bland region in terms of Pokemon options?
I think a big problem is that the second gen Kanto and Johto are supposed to be seen as one big region with 16 badges, which might be the source of many problems in those games. For example, why put Houndoor in Kanto when it may very well be in Johto? It's a bit like Diamond and Pearl not letting the player use pokémon like Rotom or Gallade without trading with someone who had already completed the game.
Something else that doesn't help is that gym leaders don't use many Johto pokémon, which is a shame since Johto's roster, while being lackluster compared to some other generations, actually has some very nice pokémon that deserve more attention. If I could make a change, I'd give Falkner a Hothoot and a Murkrow for example, it'd be a decent team of gen 2 pokémon for a first gym, it wouldn't use some very underleveled pokémon like Pidgeot, and it'd also show the player that there's more to the flying type than the plain Normal/Flying Pidgey.
Whenenever people talk about their least favourite gen, it’s always gen 1 or 5. Personally, I think GSC/HGSS deserves this spot. The Johto region was flat, the Pokemon levels were low, it was actually so hard to use a team of only Johto Pokemon IN the game they were introduced in and most of the Pokemon were underwhelming to begin with. They didn’t even fix the level curve problem in HGSS so sometimes I wonder why they even bothered remaking GSC if they weren’t going to fix the main problem? Johto was honestly the most forgettable region in my opinion, that doesn’t make it bad but it makes it one of the worst. HGSS are seen assome of the best pokemon games ever, but would they be the best if you just got to explore Johto by itself? Of course not, then it would be the worst.
It uses Kanto as a crutch to be popular. Take that away, and it falls flat on its face and gets walked all over with nothing to keep it up.