The new open world format no longer lends itself to overworld trainer battles. I don't know anyone wbo actually fought the trainers in Paldea. You get enough Exp from raids and catching and items on the ground that trainer battles are unnecessary and you have to go out of your way to trigger them. They should cut them from the next game and focus on story battles like rivals, evil team and gyms etc. Maybe include some superbosses like the Ogre clan scattered around the world scaling to your level.

Legends and SV have a decent enough foundation for an exploration and catching based approach to the series. You don't need to pad out routes with mindless NPC battles anymore. Even in the older games this was a chore and I skipped as many trainers as possible.