>>52984564>I see no evidence to make me believe the split has any effect on the design of Pokemon statsYes, exactly. Gamefreak would be engaging in power creep, split or no split. It's difficult to say in a vacuum whether the Darmanitan we got would be the exact same in terms of stats/movepool if the split had never been implemented.
>You can even look at Rhydon and see how even with high attack physical stab it wasn't broken because everything else was balancedRhydon lacks quite a lot in terms of speed, and having a 4x weakness to both Grass and Ground doesn't help it. That alone makes it less practical for an in-game playthrough, compounded by the fact that unlike Darumaka which can be found just after the third gym, Rhyhorn would normally be found after the 4th unless you deliberately skip Erika, and also has to wait until level 42 to evolve, rather than 35.
If you're not talking about in-game, then Rhydon was notable in competitive for both RBY and GSC, but part of that is just due to how few good Ground types there were otherwise. Once you get to RSE, you see Swampert taking over that role, and that's still pre-split.
I think in terms of an even playing field, I do see something.
With Stab being more of a given due to the split, that means some of the differences between mons have been reduced, but in some ways that does exacerbate the other factors, such as stats. If there were two mons where one had better stats but a worse movepool, then evening the difference in movepool puts all the focus on the stats, which makes things less even.
However, that's not exclusive to the split. Heracross was noteworthy in Gen 3 thanks to Megahorn and some solid Fighting moves, but when it came to Gen 4 Scizor became the more notable Bug type thanks to not having to rely on Hidden Power, Metal Claw, or Silver Wind. Bug and Steel were both physical types, so nothing changed, but getting new moves is what allowed it to excel.
