Yeah you can kinda tell Shudo wasn't really invested in doing the trainer arc in earnest, because Ash didn't really have an agency in it, even in how he LOST. The other protagonists were even worse.
All the factors could have made sense in Shudo's original plan, where the Pokemon trainer profession was SUPPOSED to be a crapshoot run by elitist or desperate officials who wanted to snuff out the 'losers' or prevent their OWN job being made obsolete, with the Pokemon themselves more wild animals that weren't really meant to be tamed. But in the whitewashed form the final show wanted to be, they were basically left having to depict all of Ash's failings as his own, despite nearly everything around him skipping the formalities and unfairly rigging everything against him.
Sure Ash wasn't really a good trainer then and likely would have lost anyway, but he had the right to lose via his own actions, and not everyone going "Ohh, boo-hoo, Team Rocket kidnapped and worn out my Pokemon, my jerk Pokemon won't listen to me, sleep isn't a KO, BLAH-BLAH, LOSER TALK!" and the narrative actually TAKING THEIR SIDE.
All the factors could have made sense in Shudo's original plan, where the Pokemon trainer profession was SUPPOSED to be a crapshoot run by elitist or desperate officials who wanted to snuff out the 'losers' or prevent their OWN job being made obsolete, with the Pokemon themselves more wild animals that weren't really meant to be tamed. But in the whitewashed form the final show wanted to be, they were basically left having to depict all of Ash's failings as his own, despite nearly everything around him skipping the formalities and unfairly rigging everything against him.
Sure Ash wasn't really a good trainer then and likely would have lost anyway, but he had the right to lose via his own actions, and not everyone going "Ohh, boo-hoo, Team Rocket kidnapped and worn out my Pokemon, my jerk Pokemon won't listen to me, sleep isn't a KO, BLAH-BLAH, LOSER TALK!" and the narrative actually TAKING THEIR SIDE.