This might be less of an unpopular opinion and more just a general truth that people, like me right this exact minute as I type this, eventually learn but...
Actual Pokemon cartridge games aren't very good for us competitive players. Let's be real, NONE of them are hard by any serious metric. Fire type gym leader? Use Water / Rock / whatever. Dragon type? Fuck em up with Ice Beam. Mixed champion? Put literally the slightest amount of brain power into it and use intimidate + setup Pokemon to just sweep them with zero losses regardless of levels. When competitive players actually play against brain dead AI the only thing limiting us at all are levels and that's generally pretty easy to handle with the game's rock-paper-scissors type thing or if extreme simple strats like Toxic + Revives or whatever can break the game's toughest of challenges. Even competitive players rarely seriously invest their maximum into the games. None of us have ever EV trained or bred for an in-game challenge right? Even with a "good" in-game team we're never truly pushed to do anything more than grind. Frankly I'm at a point where I don't even enjoy the cartridge games. My point here? Well that's the wild world of randomizers. Despite the name Randomizers are basically just a custom ruleset that has like 8 pages of options.
As an example I'm currently playing Soul Silver with the following options:
-Opposing trainer / gym leader levels increased by 50%.
-Trainer Pokemon are randomized but with comparable BST... So Falkner will still get shitmons but Lance will be strong.
-Wild Pokemon are also randomized but still scaled by BST. Gift and "interactable" Pokemon are unchanged.
-Any opposing Pokemon level 30+ is automatically fully evolved.
-Pokemon movepools, stats, and so on are not changed. Only trainer Pokemon, levels, and catch locations have been altered.
My starter Pokemon were Larvitar, Bagon, and... Oddish. I actually picked Oddish lol because I figured it would be reasonably useful for longer, and status effects are strong. Probably the only time in my life I willingly turned down a Psudo-Legend for a weed. I think I made the right choice though as Stun Spore has absolutely been a game changer against opponents who at times out-leveled me by 15 or more. So here's the tl;dr version of my journey so far.
Oddish did fine pretty much up to Falkner. Early game trainers are so laughably under-leveled that even with a 50% bonus they were crushed under the mighty foot of Ass Kicker the Oddish. Sprout Tower similarly was fine. Again the low BST and level of G/S trainers made the randomization and level bonus pretty insignificant. Falkner hilariously replaced his level 13 Pidgeotto with a level 20 Luvdisc... Good thing I picked Oddish.
The journey from Falknerville to Bugsy was uneventful. I caught a Gible in the whatever cave and thanks to Dragon Rage cheese walked all over Bugsy. I don't even remember what he had. Also I was really drunk. Oddish Stun Spore + Gible Dragon Rage killed off whatever it was.
Goldenrod city had the legendary Whitney. I grinded every possible trainer I could and caught a Butterfree in the bug catching contest... and lost to a Venonat(?). I didn't even get third place! I forget Whitney's first Pokemon but her level 19 Miltank was replaced by a level 29 Rhyperior lol. Once again, Oddish was great. I still nearly lost to a Stomp flinch though.
Pokeathelon with a mouse and keyboard is absolute hell. I almost used my drawing tablet to play but I was concerned that I would get angry enough to break it. But you know. Gloom needs a Leaf Stone.
Morty on the other hand utterly team wiped me. Or should I say a random trainer in his gym with a level 30 Togekiss did... I took some time to grind through Olivine's lighthouse a bit before returning. I evolved a Gyarados and Oddish / Gabite hit their second forms. Morty's final team ended up being a level 32 Roserade, 38 Venusaur, 35 Pachirisu, and his final was a Qwilfish. Gloom completely swept him lol.
Instead of having two level 30 Magnemite Jasmine has a level 45 Altaria and 45 Bronzong, and instead of her lvl 35 Steelix she has a level 53 Ludicolo lol. Ice fang + Dragon Rage Gyarados beat the first 2 and Stun Spore + literally the rest of the team dying barely was enough to break Ludicolo. But like, I actually had to plan my attack. It's such an amazing feeling vs just "use dig twice, Surf the Steelix".
I still haven't managed to beat piece of shit Chuck as his first Pokemon is a Walrein with Rest / Snore / Ice Fang / Swagger. Gloom 4-5HKOs so I can't really break through Rest without taking a lot of damage in the process. So I'm currently fighting rockets in their Mahogony hideout to try and level a bit more. Most of my opponents are around 30-40 and I'm *barely* in the early 30s. My team is Gyarados / Gabite / Gloom with two HM slaves but I'm looking for a good steel type to round off the 4th. I'd like to run 5 Pokemon but I'm afraid of dividing up the XP too much. With just 3 mons I'm grossly underleveled as is. Each random trainer is about as strong as a gym leader and each gym leader requires planning to even have a chance to face. I nearly got team wiped by a Recover Milotic at the Lake of Rage. Just a random trainer nearly fucked me raw. Amazing.
Anyway with extremely small amounts of changes older games can be made ridiculously difficult and fun. I no longer have any confidence that Gamefreak can deliver a truly enjoyable single player experience that actually test my skills. And I don't mean that as a jab at Gamefreak not am I intentionally jerking off my own shaft. I think we, as competitive players, just have to accept that Gamefreak isn't making games for us. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun with the Pokemon formula it just means we can't expect Gamefreak to hand deliver it to us.
tl;dr version actual Pokemon games are very easy and criticizing a child's game for being designed for children is a waste of time. Just play some kind of fan-made game / program if you want difficulty. This whole experience blew my mind and I say with full confidence that the past 24 hours of playing a randomizer have been the most unstructured, difficult fun I have ever had playing Pokemon in single-player mode. I would almost push this to the point where between Roms and Showdown I'm not even sure what newer Pokemon games can offer us.