-.- Putting aside my thoughts regarding doing statistical analyses in low sample sizes and unscientific polls, but how can you screen people out like that automatically? Especially if the rationale is based on "fanboyism and trolls", then there are known XY fanboys who voted in "Champion Ace lvl" and people who aren't taking it seriously whatsoever voting any option. It's rather convenient that taking out those "outliers" removes the 4 that put AG as "below E4 lvl" and the 5 that put Charizard "above Champion Mega." Especially when you're saying the data is reflective of the "reasonable body of opinion of PAD." It's more of just doing a simple average and seeing that AG and Charaizard end up being around "E4 Ace Lvl".
This is a major issue I have with you. While it's fine that you disagree with my opinion regarding A-G's strength, you don't even accept that my opinion could be in the conceivable realm of non-trivial possibility which is outright ludicrous and all you do regarding people who disagree with your viewpoint is label them as "fanboys" or "circlejerkers". For both Charizard and A-G, the conceivable realm of non-trivial possibility is somewhere in the top tier spectrum but not at the absolute pinnacle of the spectrum (Champion Mega). Now already you and I can't progress further since you believe it's plausible for 1 Champion's (or E4's) Ace to be so much better than another's that it overcompensates for ME which I completely disagree with as the function of Champions (and E4s) are to serve as benchmarks/measuring sticks of power and hence they're interchangeable for the most part. For Charizard, it beat a legendary Pokémon commanded by a Frontier Brain (who are defined as trainers much better than GYM leaders with a few of them potentially being E4 lvl or close to it). Of course rating Charizard's strength from there highly depends on your value of the term legendary which leads to subjectivity though based on portrayal (again a subjective term) in conjunction with it being commanded by an FB, most would agree that such a feat lands Charizard somewhere in the E4 range. After this Charizard continued to train throughout Ash's Sinnoh and Unova league endeavors and has improved by some unquantifiable amount though it isn't the absolute strongest (Champion Aces are by definition the absolute strongest base form trainer Pokémon so it's absurd to even consider that a Pokémon that doesn't have acces to ME or an equivalent mechanic could be outright above them) ergo I don't consider Champion Mega lvl within the conceivable range of non-trivial possibility for Charizard. Like wise for A-G since it lost to MC X which within the conveivable range of non-trivial possibility can be at most be Champion Mega lvl (Kind of derivative from my previous assumption regarding Champion Aces) making A-G strictly below Champion Mega lvl. On the flip side, A-G was able to match MC X (a Pokémon that's atleast in the league of E4 (Mega) Aces if not outright above them) from a power standpoint (which the writers conveyed with the equal sizes of the fiery and watery clouds) which is even further supported by Clemont stating that endurance was the primary differentiating factor and not power or speed. It doesn't matter how you want to interpret that match, what A-G did against Gardevoir/MG is absolutely groundbreaking for this show. Just look at the cases concerning E4s and Champions prior,
- Ash vs Lorelei
- Ash vs Drake (Hoenn)
- Ash vs Agatha
- Paul vs Cynthia
- Ash vs Bertha
- Ash vs Flint
- Trip vs Alder
In all of these cases it's made abundantly clear that the E4s and Champions operate on an entirely different plane from the other trainers. Even in cases like Ash vs Bertha where Bertha was likely restraining her capabilities as a trainer since she wanted to give Ash observation training rather than outright win and still Torterra didn't even begin to look remotely competitive despite getting a solid hit with Leaf Storm. You impartially take all of this information in and what A-G was able to do in XYZ 25 was nothing short of astonishing to the point where people have to say stuff like Diantha was a weak Champion or she was never taking the match seriously to begin with because this anime has conditioned its audience so thoroughly regarding the utter omnipotence of a Champion with respect to other trainers. Was MG Suppressed? Yes. Could Diantha have potentially beaten A-G with base Gardevoir had she battled with the intent to win by for example being more aggressive and trying to create as many opportunities as possible to launch direct hit MBs? Sure. Was Diantha never taking the match seriously? No! Switching from eye communication to actually yelling out "dodge" and actually utilizing ME regardless of intent makes it clear that Diantha wasn't taking A-G lightly. Also just because she was battling more defensively than she usually would doesn't mean that she wasn't trying to battle with said battle style to the best of her ability. I'm sorry, but I can't in good conscience consider an opinion where A-G isn't even in the top tier spectrum to be within the conceivable range of non-trivial possibility (at least by a reasonable person).
That's the long version of my answer to why I don't consider the first and last options to be plausible options for A-G's and Charizard's strength ratings and hence I used them as "dummy" options to weed out definitively unreliable inputs. Frankly all the outliers tell me is that Charizard is overrated strength wise and A-G is actually underrated strength wise despite him being perceived as overrated (which again is a factor that has a lot more to it than just strength rating) by most of this forum. Sure you can list out the shortcomings of this poll (which would apply to most polls in general) though in this case I was just trying to discern what the popular opinion was amongst people that have view points within some conceivable realm of reasonability (I can't really do anything about people who aren't giving their sincere opinions).
"Unscientific" well yes though it's impossible to do a scientific "Poll" as traditionally done on this forum and I doubt any of us have the time to do a servey that adheres to scientific rigor. Eh the whole statistics approach still seems like a better idea than all the constant fruitless hardly ever constructive debating that this forum has been the medium for regarding power-scaling.
It also seems impossible to construct a rigorous strength rating system for the Pokémon Anime given that it's a narrative and therefore open to massive realms of uncertainty and subjectivity. It's clear that certain assumptions need to be made to even fathom constructing such a system though the question then becomes what is the smallest set of assumptions (axioms) from which a respectable system can be developed. It's likely that the reason we have disagreements on this stuff is because both our respective sets contain assumptions that the other finds non-intuitive, questionable or outright fallacious though I'm also certain that our respective sets overlap signifcantly given that we agree on more than we disagree and the viewpoint disparity concerning a lot of what we disagree on is within a conceivable margin of error (even if at times you or I refuse to admit it).
Eh at the end of the day, the reality is that both of us are probably just overanalyzing a Japenease TV Show aimed primarily at viewers aged 8-12. Maybe we need to think about how our 10-year old selves would/did perceive the "relative" (even though we probably wouldn't have understood the importance of such a concept at that age) strength of Pokémon in order to attain a viewpoint that's more accurate with respect to what the writers were intending. Just a thought XD.
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