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Most of its improvements and additions (Better online, features like Wonder Trade, customization, Megas) were all things that should have been generations ago, and were carried over to other games making it seem not that important in retrospect. Not particularly difficult games combined with a greater focus on being more of a celebration of other games in general (Kanto and Lucario) give it less of a reason to go back to compared to others. Their biggest value was in their online features which are now sort of obsolete when playing in 2022.
It's cool now to hate XY in general, so you're going to see a lot of vitriol for it, but it had a lot to like. The route design is solid, most of the biomes are gorgeous, and the game itself is very charming in how it portrays the region and characters (Lumiose City is fantastic). Yes, it's the easiest, yes it removed things that didn't need to be removed (EXP share), but you're looking at a game that's 1/10 in difficulty, when everything else is a 3/10; none of these games are "hard", and you're playing the wrong games if that's what you take away from it.
