Yeha, I've run into almost no Tyranitars. I think people are trying wierd stuff over shoddy, and anyway a good sandstream team takes a bit more effort than a gimmick/thrown together team.
actually, I would think that the gimmick/thrown together team would take more effort to really make it work than a Sandstream team. 2/3rds of the Pokemon one would use on a
good Sandstream team are mandatory: Tyranitar/Hippowdon, Gliscor, Garchomp, and Blissey. Not a whole lot of effort I had to put into that, was it? The other two are usually relatively simple to piece together as well, usually consisting of two of the following: Swampert, Heatran, Skarmory, Magnezone, Rhyperior, Jirachi, or a Rapid Spin blocker (usually Dusknoir, but Gengar works as well). I'm probably missing some more obscure Pokemon on that list like Metagross, Forretress, and the occasional Roserade, but those others are Pokemon that come right to the top of my head.
See? That wasn't so hard, was it? And I'm not saying that just because you don't need to put alot of work into it that it's not good. On the contrary, Sandstorm teams work wonderfully this generation and are extremely powerful and tough to face if your team isn't geared specifically to counter them. But a good sandstorm team isn't very hard to think up and requires very little effort to construct, which I think, in my opinion, is why they're seeing alot of use (it's both easy to make and very powerful. It'll require a bit more effort though if you want to add something like a Probopass in the mix).
Gimmick teams I think require much more effort (if you really want it to work in competitive play. If you're just screwing around, then it won't require a ton of effort at all), if only because more times than not, the first four members of your team aren't already pre-planned and packaged for your use. Since the gimmick Pokemon usually aren't standards, you have to take more care to find a set of Pokemon that can work really well together and cover each other while at the same time being able to get in and do what they have to do without getting stopped or creamed in the process (which is also more likely to occur, cause again, gimmick Pokemon usually aren't Pokemon like Garchomp or Salamence in that they can take out all but a few Pokemon in two shots or less. An Explosion team, for example, have to worry about taking out opposing ghost Pokemon, and stuff like Lickilicky, while a great exploder, will have trouble trying to take on something like Dusknoir, who can stop your entire team's immediate strategy in its tracks. And I can't think of an immediate choice of Pokemon one would put on an Explosion team - IE, something that explodes - that can handle Dusknoir).
I did see someone trading a very good IV Timid Shaymin on the Wi-Fi subforum. If that can be cloned, Shaymin usage will definitely go up. I'm one of the 2 Shaymin users and I can't say that anyone's accused him of being uber for me...most of the responses I get for it are "What the hell is that?!" or something like that. Tee hee, Shaymin will prevail!
Fourth-ing (I think) the use of Shaymin on my team.