Very interesting points here and you've definitely gone a long way in changing my perspective on HGSS. In hindsight I feel, like many, that I've been blinded by the overwhelming love and appreciation you see online for these games. But laying it out like you have done, it's really made me realise that HGSS has a LOT of shortcomings that people who herald them as the gold standard of Pokemon games are unwilling to accept.Speaking of which...
Kanto is already overrated and frankly boring as a region in the games it takes center-stage. In GSC/HGSS?
It's a barren wasteland devoid of anything worth its salt. You take a boat, have a massive power trip stomping the likes of Janine, and then when you're done, you gotta grind on either the E4 or Mt. Silver on Lv. 40 wilds or Lv. 40-50 trainers to beat Red's Lv. 70+ mons.
Edit: Oh yeah, in HGSS is mid-80's for Red's mons. Lovely.
Matter of fact, HGSS in general is very, very overrated.
They're still undoubtedly very good games, but definitely not as great as I once thought. I completely agree with these points however upon reflection so consider my perspective changed.
Hmm, I was always under the impression that the community almost unanimously agreed that BW2 were the superior games to BW so it comes as a surprise for me to see this as an unpopular opinion here. In my opinion the only aspect of BW that prevails over BW2 is the story, and only just. But everywhere else I feel like BW2 completely excels in comparison to the base games. It has a bigger, less linear map (although BW is still nowhere near as linear as people say), returning Pokemon from previous regions to use in the story, although I am a fan of BW containing Pokemon exclusive to Unova, and it contains far more content both during the main storyline and post-game.Anyways, my rather small unpopular opinion: Black/White 2 is superior to Black/White. I won't elude this statement further because this may or may not be popular after all and not fitting for this thread.
As for my own unpopular opinion, although I'm not sure how unpopular this is after the famous IGN meme, I for one love the expansiveness of the ocean in RSE. To me, it makes perfect sense to give equal attention to the other half of the ecosystem (and a vastly underutilised one at that in the Pokemon games) which plays such a vital and integral role in our own ocean planet. Although I'm not sure of the exact water to land ratio both in Hoenn and irl. I personally loved the feeling of exploring the vastness of the ocean, not to mention that diving underwater also accompanied this to break up the monotony, although granted this feature was a bit bare bones and underwhelming. I can see why people would easily get bored of traversing the endless deep blue though (and the endless Tentacools and Wingulls) but they at least acknowledged this and tried to make it more interesting with various islands and the underwater to explore.