I asked this question because someone asked it many years ago and AG contests won by a lotDP is this even a question? Hoenn and Kanto contests were bland and May was lucky as hell. DP contests were also more fashionable and the battles were turned a notch up. Not saying May was bad, but Dawn was 10+ better
Plus her mother probably gave her alot of tips before starting her Journey. So the loses felt alot more painful.Shinou's Contests were a bit more glamorous due to participants having to dress up, and they were also a bit more realistic since we saw Hikari fail during the appeal round on two occasions [something that we never saw Haruka experience in the Houen or Kanto Contests], and that made Hikari's journey feel less contrived to me.