Still the peak of the series.

The Rocket plot isn't the main plot of the game. The plot of the game is catching up to Red's ghost as everyone keeps mentioning him (Oak, Team Rocket, Blue, Kanto gym leaders, random NPCs) until you literally face him atop Mt. Silver. Team Rocket being so lackluster is the entire point as you struggle to prove yourself against the feats of the last player character. Actual ludokino that most people don't understand.

You're constantly chasing a specter throughout the whole of Johto and Kanto. You keep hearing about what happened 3 years ago, about that prodigious kid who disbanded Team Rocket, you go to the old Kanto landsites and nothing is the same because of the influence he had, you're in the game discovering new Pokémon because all of the previous ones had already been discovered by him, you can't catch any of the Kanto legendaries because they had already been caught by him, and then finally once you have explored both regions and climbed the peak of the world's most dangerous mountain, who is there? The person you've been hearing about or whose effects you've experienced throughout the whole game.

Gen 2 is an actual experience and a monumental feat in both entertainment and ludonarrative