The problem is that she DOES battle to pad most of her screen time, but since she's not a battler, it's irrelevant to her development, and usually very boring and one sided fights to make her look superficially badass. This is almost always the direction they take for characters they can't think up proper ideas for, mostly in the form of spamming Team Rocket at their worst.
I wouldn't mind if we got a companion who didn't battle but actually had it as a developed weakness really, ie. Pokemon with developed and useful abilities but very little durability in battles. Non battlers like Serena and Mallow all really have the same problem, they're not supposed to be battlers, but the writers can't stand the idea of making a companion 'weak' or too much of a punching bag, especially the cute girls, so keep them in a protective bubble and giving them jobbers to make them look even more unstoppable than the experienced trainers, compared to say Ash, who is good at battling, but is allowed to fail spectacularly at other things that aren't his specialty, making him feel more balanced. As Brock stated in one episode, battling is as much about impressive display of abilities and strategy than winning or losing. It doesn't matter how many times the story prevents the character losing or even taking damage, if they can't battle well they can't battle well.
Lillie and Sophocles I could argue are similar, but unlike Mallow, they can usually think of plenty other ways for them to use their limelight or be useful, so don't need curb stomps for cheap scout points. They do also have more developed weaknesses or flawed moments besides that as well (even in battling, while they still haven't lost one outright, they have been allowed to look novice, taking the odd beating or looking clueless at times, the writers are willing to accept it's not their forte because they don't need it to pad screen time).
Mallow hasn't really been allowed to have failings or many flaws about her developed, and I think that only furthers the idea the writers aren't confident her actual niches and strengths hold enough. Usually a character with good agency has things they're blatantly good and bad at to flow into the story and cast.
I think it's a real shame they haven't used the UG episodes to bulk up Mallow for example, since they mostly revolve around dilemmas where battling won't work and shrewder wittier tactics are required. While they are using this to beef up Lillie and Sophocles' quota though, Mallow still feels like dead weight. I'm surprised they haven't had an instance she manages to neutralise a UB with food and gentleness for example, yeah it's kinda cliche, but it's something that's brilliant in it's own more subtle way and plays on her role as Team Mom.
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