Honestly, the only time I find him to be incompetent and such a novice is in the BW saga. He clearly acts like an amateur throughout that series, but not in the other sagas. Plus, even though I'd find it BS for Pikachu to lose in the later anime (blame the writers sometimes), he's still pretty...
I'm almost 18 (if you count me then).
But since Pokemon has been around for 20 years, I think a lot of adults who grew up with the franchise still play it, even people on YouTube, etc.
Quilava due to Ash's Quilava in the anime and me growing attached to the Cyndaquil line.
And my others are the Mareep line, Espeon, Houndoom, Donphan, Magby, Togetic, the Azurill line, etc.
The GS Ball comes into mind since it was one of the main plotlines in the Orange Islands... then in Johto where Ash hoped for Cyndaquil to evolve someday and it finally did in Sinnoh (which took WAY too long) and the fact that it had a draw against Nando's Armaldo which was underwhelming...
Apparently my parents or other people IRL say things like I should get over Pokemon, or no one likes it, or that I am still play it, and I tell them others like it and such. Or I may show them proof such as #Pokemon20.
Or I just ignore it.
When Pokemon with 10-15% encounters are usually seen 5% of the time for me. And it's really time consuming having to look for them and run into the same kind of Pokemon over and over rather than the Pokemon I want.