The unpopular opinions continue.
26: Playing off the Buizel and Aipom trade. I found both Buizel and Aipom more interesting with their original trainers. Not a unpopular opinion on Aipom's half but for Buizel's half it is. Buizel was Dawn's most interesting Pokemon when she had it and I was eager to see how she would turn such a battle oriented and mean attitude Pokemon into a Contest star, instead they went the lazy route and traded it for Aipom. Buizel felt boring under Ash's control and I will always see it nothing more then a poor man's Treecko/Grovyle/Sceptile under Ash. It was boring. Aipom was boring with Dawn too and her contest style gave Ash's team more flavor. But that one isn't unpopular as most fine Aipom better with Ash, but IMO Buizel stopped being interesting the minute he left Dawn.
27: Many people think BW is Ash's first regression, but IMO it first happened in DP. The only difference is he regained his skills rather quickly in DP unlike BW. You did go from Ash having a Sceptile, Glalie, Corphish, Torkoal, and Swellow that carried a entire league by themselves, heck Sceptile battles like two Legendaries in BF, then we start at DP with Turtwig, Aipom, and Staravia for the first few episodes. Of course they made Ash not as strong as he use to be and factor in Paul and there you have it. It's just DP Ash recovered his strength early on and it's hardly noticeable.
28: At this point in the series, I don't think Ash needs rivals on the show anymore, at least not full time ones. Between Paul and Gary, what more can you do with Ash vs regional rival? It's cliche now, and the writers aren't even trying to make rivals even interesting anymore without copying a old rival. New rookie characters need rivals more then Ash because of how the characters react to a rival. With Ash it's the same reaction all the time. This is another reason I thought AG Ash was handled so well. Hmm, I probably mentioned this one before on this thread. Still a highly unpopular opinion.
Pokemon Left version and Pokemon Right version. They are coming soon.