I'm not going to try and talk about whether or not this Pokémon "needs more innovation" because quite frankly I suck at this game competitively and lack the skill and experience most of you guys have, but I still want to take a moment to talk about
Dugtrio and why I think it's... honestly not that good.
I can't be the only one who's tried building with Dugtrio on different styles only to find this thing surprisingly inconsistent, right? When I was first trying out ADV OU, my inexperienced self was curious about why Arena Trap Dugtrio wasn't banned when it was from future generations of OU. What was the problem?, I asked myself. Shouldn't Dugtrio massively benefit from ADV's new mechanics, such as the increased number of held items, removal of maxed out EVs in every stat, and the represent addition of Abilities? Well... yeah, those are all factors as to why Dugtrio is viable in ADV OU, but the more I've played, the more I'd like to think I've figured this Pokémon out.
The main issue I'm having with Dugtrio in the teambuilder is that, as good as Dugtrio is at what it does, it's extremely one-dimensional, but more importantly, it's very exploitable. I view this as a natural balancing act of sorts- yes, you can select this trapping specialist in the team builder and use Dugtrio's talents, usually with but somewhat rarely without its beloved Choice Band, to attempt to trap and eliminate specific threats to the rest of your team structure. That's great and all, but the problem kicks in immediately after that. That is to say... now what's Dugtrio supposed to do? My Choice Band Dugtrio just trapped revenge killed my opponent's Tyranitar, Metagross, whatever it is with Earthquake, but oh? What's this? I'm locked into Earthquake now and just gave my opponent a free turn to do whatever they want with their Flying-Type they had in the back?
Oh great, now my opponent's Salamence just got a free Dragon Dance because I incorrectly guessed it was a Mixed set. Or God forbid you give AgiliPass Zapdos a free turn to set up for virtually no cost. That's not going to have repercussions at all!
The other thing I want to mention about trappers in general is that sometimes, the viability of the Pokémon isn't dependent on the trapper itself but rather the Pokémon they're supporting. An argument can definitely be made that Dugtrio is more balanced in ADV OU in part because it's supporting a less power-crept array of offensive and defensive Pokémon. Something like Latias might be broken in ADV but not in DPP in its current state, but you bet this power-creeping Specs Latias becomes way scarier when Dugtrio's around to help trap targets like Tyranitar and DPP OU's beloved Jirachi. These Ground-weak, Earthquake-vulnerable examples are just that, of course- examples, but rest assured I keep coming across things like this over and over and over again the more I start looking for them. As a result of these shortcomings, I find myself using and supporting Dugtrio usage less than ever before in my time playing ADV OU. I'll still try to use this Pokémon on occasion as a support for a hardcore balance or stall core, but I just have to know if I'm the only one who's constantly finding myself sold short by Dugtrio's hypothetical appeal more than its actual game-to-game performance.