Yep, this is one of my main targets every generation. I managed it in Blue, except Mew, after finding someone with a Red cartridge (possibly one of the happiest days of my childhood). In Silver, I could have done, but restarted too often xD In Emerald, I almost did, besides I think, Glalie and Walrein, as I couldn't be bothered to level them up, and Deoxys and Jirachi.
Finally, in HG this summer, I managed to complete my pokedex! As my main game, I already had a lot of the pokedex filled from trades from Diamond and Platinum. Witrh access to wifi and the trade thread in these forums, it was actually fairly easy. Last one I caught was Spiritomb, after spending months getting enough watts on the pokewalker
I really still think it is the staple of the series, or at least is what most people will remember it for - only hardcore fans get into competitive battling, and training pokemon to be viable for online play is a lot more complicated and difficult than completing the pokemon, a mon avis.