Stuff like this pisses me off. What's special about Charmander Bulbasaur or Squirtle apart from the fact that you grew up with them? It's people hating on the new generations of Pokémon that make me look back and question my own gen. You could just as easily say Charmander is some designless fire lizard thing, Bulbasaur is a whatthefuck I don't even know with a plant thing on it's back and Squirtle is a gay wee turtle. Of course we don't say that because a) it's wrong and b) there's no bandwagon/meme brigade to stick up for us and help us out.
95% of us hate the water type, but there's still 5% who really like it and that just solidifies my notion that anyone who says these new pokes suck would probably say they sucked no matter what they looked like.
Cyndaquil is cute and all, I'm not so fond of Torchic but it's Fighting type evolution paved the way for Chimchar's line, and Chimchar is pretty badass. But do you really think any ten year old back in my day liked Charmander because it was cute? Fuck no. It was a red lizard with a flaming tail. That was badass enough. Then it evolved into Charizard, who is still the coolest looking dragon in the series despite the lack of a Dragon type. I love Dragonite, but it's kind of dopey looking. The red and blue color scheme works perfectly. The fact that only the inside of the wings are blue makes them actually look attached, unlike Salamence's tacked on pieces of shit. Again, Infernape is VERY cool, but Typhlosion and Blaziken just don't compare. The fire pig looks
ok. I see potential, but the only fire starter we've had that wasn't on fire was Torchic, so I'm a little worried.
Then we move onto Squirtle. A gay wee turtle? Have you fucking looked at it? It has a big old squirrel tail. That's pretty cool. Wartortle is even cooler, probably the coolest middle evolution of all the starters. Then Blastoise gets fucking cannons. Oh yeah, people were complaining about newer Pokemon games adding weapons to evolutions. Huh. Strange. Totodile, Mudkip, and Piplup just can't compete. Though Empoleon is awesome. I wonder how many people would actually like Swampert if it weren't so useful. Water otter just does look over designed. It's the first starter with a logo on it, and the logo just doesn't make any sense. Do they think we're stupid? We can't tell that it's an otter if it doesn't have a shell on its stomach? And if only the nose were blue, the color scheme would be okay. But it's orange. Ugh.
Finally Bulbasaur as a kid was just so damn unique and interesting. It was a frog/dinosaur and a plant. You could look at it and say "Oh yeah, grass type". You kind of have to assume Treecko and the new guy are grass just because they are green. Even Chikorita had a leaf on its head, and Chikorita's whole line was very underwhelming. I'll go ahead and admit it, Torterra is cooler than Venusaur. But they both beat the shit out of Meganium and Sceptile.
So at the end of the day, Gen 1 and 4 were pretty fucking awesome. I was an adult when I played Pearl, so I'm pretty certain my opinion isn't "just because I grew up with them". I also can't say I understand the logic behind your second paragraph at all. So if 99% of us hated the water type, because 1% liked it the 99% must all just be haters?