I also don't think Gastly (trade) should be in high, because it really needs to be babied until level 25, at which point it becomes awesome, but it is dead weight for a fairly significant portion of the game (assuming you catch it in Sprout Tower or nearby).
I guess this boils down to how much we penalise Gastly for its period of doing nothing and how valuable we find Gengar beginning with L25. In contrast to Magikarp in other games, we are also playing the game for quite a bit longer, with 8 more gyms and Red.
I also think Cyndaquil could go to Top, though it does have a period where it is underpowered compared to the rest of your team (generally after Morty up until it evolves). Chickorita could be High or Top (I'm in the middle of a runthrough with it right now, so I'll comment again as I get farther; thus far, I'm pleasantly surprised with its usefulness).
Cyndaquil doesn't learn Ember until after the Sprout Tower and is stuck with Ember until L31 before when its bases aren't doing it any favours. I'd say Totodile is just so much better as a starter that these two can't be in the same tier.
Chikorita in Top is unbelievable to my ears. I'm training one in my own run right now (mostly because I've played with the other two starters too many times) and even High is dubious. I'm interested in hearing your defence.
I don't think Sudowoodo should be High, since Rock-types have lost a lot of their usefulness by that point, and while Sudowoodo does have access to Rock Slide, it's murdered by any special attack ever and doesn't have the nice Ground typing and the immunities and STAB moves it grants. I would say Mid.
The rock-typing never quite stops being useful, and Sudowoodo beats Graveler in base attack, coming at a high enough level. Learns Rock Slide at L28, while Graveler will never get it and is stuck with Rock Throw forever.
I'm not sure Tauros or Miltank should be High either, but I've never used them, so I'll leave that up to people who are more familiar with them.
They basically just assault things with neutral STAB attacks and great base stats and learn some other cool things that give them coverage. It hurts a lot (not as much as Ursaring's STABs though).
Spearow shouldn't be High by any means. None of the bird Pokemon should be, as they are quite weak, have poor level-up movepools, bad TM pools, and are fairly weak.
Firstly, I wouldn't compare Fearow to guys like Noctowl or Xatu. Doduo is a better comparison and Fearow beats him in availability by a fair amount of time present.
Spearow is possibly the heaviest hitter in the earlygame, training really easily in Sprout Tower and being possibly the best Pokemon for gyms 1-5. Later on, STAB Return/Fly/Drill Peck off 90 base attacks works wonders too. A must for High IMO.
Be sure to mention only that Red Gyarados should be in High.
Is there a point in that though? Maybe the analysis instead could point to alternative places and time for capturing instead?
Also, we need to include Lugia (S) and Ho-Oh (G) in the tiering list.
Should both go to High? A rhetorical question I guess.
Finally, we should keep in mind that 2nd gen games don't have the in-game powerhouses that every other generation seems to have. The special stat split combined with Game Freak's unwillingness to fix movepools to adjust means that this generation seems to be a low-point in terms of absolute power. As such, we should probably be a little more lenient when it comes to putting Pokemon in the Top tier, otherwise we're going to end up with an extremely centralized tier list that won't be very helpful.
The biggest imbalance in GSC ingame is the poor quality of the available TMs IMHO - compared to RBY where most types (besides, like, fighters) had their STAB and coverage options covered from early to midgame (Thunderbolt after the third gym is pretty awesome).
Anyway, whether we're lenient or not is a question I have trouble addressing, but we should apply the same standards and criteria to everything (e.g. not just Scyther but Cyndaquil as well).
