I doubt it since there would've been no reason for it to evolve if that was the case. If the writer intended for that particular grass Pokemon to evolve, then that why it evolved so it could escape from the cage. The only reason to assume the Pokemon were ordered not to evolve, is because that's what the writers wanted, for it not to evolve thus it it would've learned a new more powerful move like leaf storm. If the writers want the grass Pokemon to evolve in that manner, then it makes perfect sense why it's pre-evolved form couldn't break the stage thus evolution was to give a boost in strength.
Also take in account of other factors, I primarily was using Chikorita in this example, but the reason why Chikorita evolved because it wanted to protect Ash, not because it could break the cage. The general argument was not so much that it could break the cage so it could escape but that it could break the cage because it was stronger.
But why evolve the Pokemon at all? If the pre-evolved form had the same exactly potential strength why evolve it, and unlike your Charizard example it can't be applied to every Pokemon that did evolve.
The way I see it the only real reason why Buizel shouldn't evolve in terms of story and plot is because it doesn't want to evolve into a Floatzel. But so far there hasn't been anything of that, it's been neutral. It's neutralness may allow it to evolve.
Now again my stance as I said the first time is: Buizel doesn't necessarily have to evolve, and Buizel could be fine as it is in strength.
But I'm not going to ignore that Ash's Floatzel would be superior to Ash's Buizel except possibly in appearance.
And before you argue what I think you are going to argue. Let me say that it would be entirely up to the writers. They could easily have Floatzel win at least one match after it evolved, or they could have it lose every match. But if I was a writer, I would have Ash's Floatzel beat tough opponents fairly easier than if it was a Buizel.
Thanks for taking the time to reply in full, I appreciate it.
The thing is though, you're not one of the writers. It isn't your job to keep pokemon fans entertained, and if it was and you had his evolved pokemon walkover opponents, you wouldn't be there for long. It wouldn't be interesting any more.
I think your argument about the grass pokemon is rather the wrong the around. It wouldn't have evolved in order to escape from the situation; the situation only existed in order to give it a dramatic scene in which to evolve. It may seem stronger in that one scene, but I maintain that it would make no difference whatsoever in later episodes.
They evolve pokemon not so they can perform better against the challenges they face, but because viewers would rightly find it ridiculous if no pokemon Ash owned ever evolved.
I'm not saying it shouldn't or won't evolve; the thread is about whether people still think it doesn't need to. My answer is yes.
Ash's Floatzel would be stronger than Ash's Buizel -
in the games. In the anime, there' no such thing as a pokemons strength. The writers decide that they want a battle to go a certain way. Maybe they think "oh, that pokemon's his mascot, we should have that play an important part" or "oh, this pokemon hasn't played a major part in a while, maybe they should now". But strength, in the terms you're talking about it, doesn't exist in the anime; a Pikachu can beat a Dragonite if it suits the writers, and they do it in a suitably dramatic fashion. After all, if a pokemons strength was in any way relevant to the anime, then by rights Pikachu, who has shown the power to take down legendaries and pseudo-legendaries and various other pokemon a Pikachu should have no business beating, should be so much more powerful than the new pokemon Ash catches in each new region as to render Monferno, Grotle, Buizel etc totally useless by comparison.
Although I still believe that that anime=/=games you are incorrect about the your claim that in the anime it doesn't matter if a pokemon evolves. Some pokemon won't get better if they evolve, ie bulbasour, but in the case of charizard/sceptile/pidgeot, the writers deemed them too overpowered to stay in ash's team for too long. Which is also why evolutions are delayed and why grovyle evolved in middle of the BF saga and not in the hoenn saga.
Evolutions are delayed because if they all happened at the same time people would be like "not another one! that's the ninth this episode!" Those pokemon you mentioned didn't stay on his team for long because in each case he was moving to a new region shortly after they evolved, and they wanted to showcase the new regions pokemon. Specifically with Scepticile, Hoenn had already had more evolutions than Johto; maybe they didn't want the "not another one!" factor to crop up, as I feel it is during Sinnoh.