I don't think any singular tiering action will solve the entirety of the problems with the tier, Palafin included. It's clear that there's still a ways to go in that regard. That being said, if you're asking if I think Palafin being dropped would be a net benefit to the tier, my answer would be yes.
I'll respond to this by saying that I think the main 'disease' in this tier is basically a result of an antiquated tiering policy, and certain overreaches of what is effectively executive action (Bax/HearthPon being QBs and not suspects comes to mind) - but credit where it's due, I am (once again) appreciative of the more liberal tiering action towards moves and not the mons themselves (see
this post for more on that), and I think it's only a matter of time before that proverbial dam breaks.
As for Palafin's 'health' in the tier, I've already touched on it's stat distribution, but I'd also like to call attention to the fact that Offensive mons of this status tend to fight an uphill battle for unbans because of the sort of 'Paper Tiger' effect that the most egregious bans tend to employ. I mean this in the sense that when something like this gets the boot, every mon in the tier technically 'gets better', so in that sense it almost comes full circle to making a net zero change - wait any amount of time, and you get a bunch of people turning around going 'I mean, why would we want this thing back in the tier anyway?'. There's a greater point I'm trying to make here, but I don't know how to word it without sounding like I'm talking in circles, so I'll leave it at that.
EDIT: if it helps, I would say it's kinda like 'we don't use broken to fix broken' with extra steps, but that initial saying has kinda eroded in it's validity as a descriptor anyway, so... take it as you will.
Frankly, with the amount of offensive and defensive answers to threats like Waterpon that can also handle Palafin in some capacity (,
,
,
,
,
,
) I think so. While Palafin can certainly run certain sets to make certain trades less weighed against it, it'll always be stopped by something, and we're not tiering on the concept of a pokemon running every set at once, or
would be banned.
Gonna be frank, I don't picture a lot of these these being good examples:
Rillaboom / Sinischa: name one thing that is stopping Fin' from either A) Flip Turning on it's counters or B) hitting Tera Grass or (to a lesser extent) Tera Ice/Dragon for defensive purposes, and flipping the MU entirely? I understand it's a little bit presumptuous to assume this thing will Tera because of the Tera sink Kingambit is (both in use and in opposition) - but it'll always be an option that is there. I also see Sinischa's usage as a little bit suspect, but I think that's down to matchup unfamiliarity, so I'm willing to be illuminated on that minor matter.
R. Bolt: Aren't Bulk Up sets supposed to just play mindgames with this thing? It's only a matter of time before you Tera to an Electric-resistant type and either Ice Punch this thing to death,
or (because Bolt seems to adore Tera Fairy so much), you basically hit Wave Crash and brute force the interaction (small mechanics inquiry: how do Jet Punch and Thunderclap interact with each other? Are they both +1 Priority?).
Dragapult isn't all that different, just with different Tera's, and I don't recall this thing being listed as a good answer when this thing first got QB'd, so... what was the argument here again?
Dragonite / Zamazenta are the only ones on here I see being remotely good examples, and even then that's in a scenario where you
let Dragonite set up (which honestly, I think this playerbase is getting a lot better at handling anyway). Zamazenta is in a similar boat, and the only ones I've had trouble forcing out from my own personal experience are the Sub ID sets.
As for if Val' would be banned for set verity, well... I've also been in a similar-ish conversation about this before (and no, I don't think Val should be banned just for this - and I think the idea that Darkrai is higher up the hit list for suspects when Val is doing more for the tier, and the two are acting as sort of partners in crime for each other, is sort of dumb), given that Kyurem is the talk of the town atm for being unpredictable and cheesing it's checks with SubTect freezes (again,
allegedly) - nothing would surprise me at this point.
I'll throw it in here now for those who remember me from 2017: I was the guy who coined 'ban DD' as a thing (rather haphazardly in the initial SM Duggy suspect, much to everyone's ire), but as I've played the game more, I've found myself more willing to adapt to even the more ""broken"" abusers of the move - my indifference to GFire is one such example, but is also not limited to SM Zygarde (as much as I agree that thing deserved the boot), Bax and Kyurem this gen (side note: am I the only one who thinks the order we banned Bundle/Bax/upcoming Kyu suspect is back-to-front? No? Just me?), Dragonite, SM Zard X... the list goes on, and I'm not as resentful as I used to be about the move, even with mechanics changes that seem to facilitate it, and all I can think is "did I unknowingly have a body swap episode with one of the council, and just never notice? Or did someone here lose a bet?" (Sorry, long tangent... anyway).
Point being is that I think there are a lot of core aspects of Gen 9 that has left the tier to sort of eat itself in that sense (see also the incumbent power creep intrinsic to every generation), and it's not something that I think can be gone after without reforms to the tiering policy. This is why I call GFire and the like only 'symptoms' and not the cause. This Cancer ain't gonna die away just because you pop a few bite marks from time to time.
I'm not well-versed enough in ORAS OU to make a judgement call here, but if Giratina-Origin proved to be a worthwhile defensive presence in the tier that could hold back some of its' biggest threats, and not outright unhealthy or broken, I would not be at all opposed to letting it drop.
If this were 3 or 4 years ago, I think we'd be on the same wavelength... alas.
Everything else in this post I feel I'd kinda be repeating myself, so I'll shelve it there.