And there you prove your bias. Lillie has not done better then Misty did in anyway shape or form. Girl has had one battle and no captures. Yes Lillie is well developed in a sun and moon sense but don't get it twisted, she had a long way to go to catch up with Misty. Same with Kiawe, his entire development this region is one new move for Turtonator and a new capture/z move for Marowak, that's it. Again, good in the Sun and Moon sense but no where near a fully developed character.
Again, I don't even care about their popularity rankings, I'm speaking about just plain bias on your part.
As far as I'm concerned, the only washed up pokemon characters in the anime are TR and to a lessor extent Tracy since they both contribute very little and have almost no development.
I think it's a case of comparing progression to character agency. Many say Kiawe has already contributed more than Brock did in three series, and while Misty caught and evolved a full team, it didn't stop her being demoted for a lot of Johto and a lot of her team barely being utilised besides as occasional comic relief, while Lillie has, if anything, slowly upped her game as the smart guy of the team.
Yeah Turtonator, Marowak and Snowy aren't heavily boosted, but many fans like their characterisations and moments of involvement compared to fully evolved Pokemon like Starmie that barely got any effective involvement besides beating up effortless opponents like Team Rocket. Snowy has at least done more than Brock's Vulpix, and while not getting boosts regularly, Kiawe has been shown doing so via training and bonding with Turtonator and Marowak and changing up their battle strategies, substance over DEM evolutions and move learns, which are more the characters getting things over doing anything for them.
A character can get dynamic boosts and development and still fail as character if the writers don't know how to use them properly. Many like some of the SM cast because, in spite of mostly being stagnant, they are often used in a unique way (besides some like Mallow, who ironically has a fully evolved Pokemon). The writers almost make a game of all the eccentric ways they can use certain Pokemon's abilities. If anything it would be interesting to see Misty and Brock in episodes that don't rely on the old formula and actually force them to have more versatile bits of limelight, something only really the earliest points of OS and the specials dabbled in.
