Let me rephrase this...
Honestly I don't understand why people do runs. Some channel called "scott's thoughts" randomly popped upon a suggested video. he was doing mono pokemon runs to see who got the best time. I constantly hear about people doing runs all the time as well for added difficulty.
>mono type
>nuzlock
>etc.


Making up artificial rules is stupid and adds nothing to the game. It's obviously not how it was designed to be played, truth be told you were supposed to figure out game breaking cheats in order to properly play the $50 post games that were stadium 1 and 2.
They actually rewarded you for that with a chance to get a starter or other 1 time only pokemon.

Other games actually do reward you for taking challenges

>Arc the Lad
gives you a stone that reduces your MP consumption to zero and a secret character who adds many side quests to the next game when you transfer data for completing a challenge dungeon.

>FF7
gives you the gold choccobo and access to some side dungeons and materia for going through breeding hell.

>Valkyire profile
gives you the real ending for not fucking up

>FFVIII
Gives you gilgamesh for defeating odin early

>Kingdom hearts
you get a preview of the next game for doing crazy shit

>Breath of Fire 1+2
You get a better ending and transformations for going out of your way.


>Chrono Cross
Gives you Vigora for getting some islands in the right order and extra content when picking Glenn instead of Nikki during the tory.

>FFX-2
gives you another ending for doing everything

You get jack shit for doing nuzlockes /runs.

You beat pokemon, move on and try other games.