I agree. They removed way too many things that made these games great such as the RPG story lines, the Rentals, and Mini Games. PBR was nothing more than a crappy 3-D battle simulator and nothing else. It was like half a game.
Paul is one of the best characters to come into the series in years. He's the perfect rival for Ash because he is the exact opposite of him and pushes him to his limit. I also love his team.
I think there is a good balance of cutesy pokemon and fierce looking pokemon. Although the cutesy ones are mostly un-evolved and the fierce ones are mostly evolved.
Blastoise because he has good defenses and can learn attacks such as earthquake and ice beam to cover his grass and electric weaknesses. He's an all around good pokemon and he's my favorite.