I personally think Raichu is cuter than Pikachu, on top of just being more useful and having a better design. I hate that Pikachu specifically is the mascot, rather than the line or even just each region's Pika-clone taking over. I partially blame that on the anime refusing to let go of Ash, since a big part of his Pikachu's character is refusing to evolve. If I had a say, Johto would've starred a Gold expy, starting with a Pichu (or hatching a Pichu egg to show off the mechanic) that eventually evolves to a Raichu, since the big deal about baby Pokemon is supposed to be bonding and such to help them reach their full potential, i.e. their final stage. I also blame the anime for the fact that we'll probably never see a Mega Raichu since Ash obviously couldn't use it despite it being part of his signature mon's line.
I also wish Gamefreak would understand what's wrong with their marketing focus. Gen 4, Lucario got popular and so they pushed him a bit more during the time. Then Gen 5 came out and they kind of tried to recreate that popularity with Zoroark, which fell by the wayside when people gravitated to other mons like Zekrom. Now Gen 6, not only is Lucario still everywhere, but they're putting Greninja everywhere too (look at the anime Form). It's basically the problem I have with Pikachu in miniature: they over-marketed something that got natural popularity, tried to make lightning strike twice, and then retreated into over-marketing previous stuff, thinking it was Zoroark itself rather than trying to force popularity through marketing that left a sour taste. And one reason I personally liked Lucario at the time was because his debut movie not only made him a full character, but properly gave the spotlight to him rather than Ash, a problem I again attribute to Pikachu.
In most movies, Ash and co. tend to have most of the spotlight, always focusing on how they can somehow fix what is literally a legendary problem while focusing on saving it through power of friendship and reassuring each other. In so many movies a bunch of scenes usually end up being Ash, Pikachu, and one of the featured Pokemon, even when they get the focus right like Keldeo. Lucario's movie took Pikachu out of the picture for most of the plot, so they actually had to focus on something different in the form of Lucario's distrust in his past and in Ash rather than "Pikachu and I can accomplish anything if we work hard and work together" being Ash's solution to so many things in the films.
At the end of that rant, I guess I should clarify that I don't hate Pikachu itself so much as the fact that it embodies so many blemishes or shackles on the Pokemon IP both for my personal tastes and in legitimate design/marketing manners.
Other unrelated opinion: I think despite having one of the better designed regions, Johto has the weakest set of original Pokemon. Sure, there are some really good and stand out Pokemon designs, but as a whole the 100 mons Johto introduced weren't that interesting to me, whether their design was too simple or derivative of something else (Slowking, Espeon/Umbreon). Some people complain about Gen 4 adding evolutions to so many old mons instead of wholly original ones, but I at least give those credit for adding something interesting to really forgettable Gen 2 mons (Gliscor, Weavile, and Honchkrow to name my stand out cases).
