They might as well make the honey badger Pokemon. As you say, Gamefreak don't care.
What does the Honey Badger being made have to due with Gamefreak caring or not? It's not like the Honey Badger is any different then using any other Animal.
They do care about what pokemon they introduce.
They just don't care about nonsense arguments about numbers becoming slightly bigger being a bad thing because someone said so.
I mean, its not like they are deliberately trying to make as many legendaries as possible just to piss off people like shinyumbreon.
If you do some research, most of them have some very interesting backgrounds and bases and were likely added because they thought the idea was interesting enough.
I'd imagine the main reason they made more Legendary Pokemon was because a lot of people do like them. Yah some people lose interest and believe they lose value the more there are, but not everyone thinks like that, and I can only assume the target audience of the franchise(You know, little kids) cares even less, Legendary Pokemon are basically "special", kids are going to get interest in that, not all of them, but enough to keep making more Legendary Pokemon.
It's not like there is even a lot of Legendary Pokemon anyways, Legendary Pokemon make a total of around 7% of overall Pokemon. There's only been around a 4% increase of Legendary Pokemon since the first generation. Breaking it down even more:
Generation 1-151 total Pokemon, 5 Legendary Pokemon, 3.1% Legendary Pokemon of the generation, Regional Pokedex, and total.
Generation 2-100 total Pokemon, 6 Legendary Pokemon, 6% Legendary Pokemon of the generation, 4.4% Legendary Pokemon for Regional Pokedex and total.
Generation 3-135 total Pokemon, 10 Legendary Pokemon, 7.4% Legendary Pokemon of the generation, 4.9% Legendary Pokemon for Regional Pokedex, 5.4% Legendary Pokemon total.
Generation 4-107 total Pokemon, 14 Legendary Pokemon(Phione included), 13% Legendary Pokemon of the generation, 4% Legendary Pokemon for Regional Pokedex(DP)/3.3% Legendary Pokemon for Regional Pokedex(Platinum), 7.1% Legendary Pokemon total.
Generation 5-156 total Pokemon, 13 Legendary Pokemon, 8.3% Legendary Pokemon of the generation and Regional Pokedex(B/W)/4.3% Legendary Pokemon for Regional Pokedex(B2/W2), 7.2% Legendary Pokemon total.
So for the most part, the regional dex has always been around 4% Legendary, with the exception of the first series of 5th generation which was twice that.
The amount of Legendary Pokemon added in total has gone up only around 1% each generation, with the exception of generation 4 which went up almost by 2% as well as generation 5 which only added around 0.1%.
Generation 4 added the most Legendary Pokemon , but it also was the second lowest for Legendary in Regional Pokedex, for both series of the games.
And no, I didn't count formes/forms, as it's still the same Pokemon regardless of the change of look and stats. I also didn't count Legendary Pokemon that weren't in the regional dex when it came to doing the regional dex part, as they aren't registered in the Pokedex, so even though B2/W2 has a ton of Legendary Pokemon you can get, a lot aren't in the regional dex, plus it's all post game, which means more Pokemon for you to get from past games, nothing wrong with adding in Legendary Pokemon from past games to post game of new games.
Overall, there isn't a lot of Legendary Pokemon during your game play, as I said, only around 4% for most games. Unless you consider that a lot...which I suppose all generations had a lot then.
There simply is no limit to how much they can/should/will/whatever add to the franchise. There is no such thing as "not needed" or whatever, there is no criteria for that. You may not like the amount, but that makes no difference, your personal taste is just that, personal, others wont feel the same, and your feelings aren't in anyway a fact of the matter. There is no criteria for what makes a Legendary Pokemon other then Gamefreak saying it's one.
So again, unless you consider 4% and 7% to be a large amount, then no, not a lot of Legendary Pokemon, and there's no such thing as "not needed".