This one still gets to me, why did they write him to lost in such a half assed way, the whole conference was a waste of time.

Would it really have been hard to have him lose against one of the elite 4? Losing to lance not only would have been a good way to illustrate that Ash was a very talented trainer but still had a long way to go as a trainer but it wouldn't have been so insulting and frustrating considering his team consisted of multiple pokemon that weren't even close to meeting their full potential.