Finally saw the episode myself, it was very enjoyable.
Its clear that there is much better pacing in this GF than the previous one. The appeals were all compact and did not take up a lot of time, (unlike the whole confused Skitty that took like 5 minutes from the Hoenn GF), and they were well done.
Its always nice to have a little character interaction, and the Drew/Absol scene did just that. I like the fact that Drew can magically change from a nice guy to an a-hole on a whim, good god. Too bad I can't understand Japanese, I'd probably enjoy the scenes with Ash/Brock talking to Drew more.
The Ash/Aipom thing was very short also, why do people make a big deal out of this? Far more time was spent on teaching Snorunt how to do Ice beam, the whole Aipom thing was less than a minute.
As for the May/Harley battle, I again don't see the problem. Most of the Contest matches ARE the same length as this. Cacturne may have went down a little too quickly, but they obviously wanted Wigglytuff to take center stage. I LMAO'd when Wiggly knocked Munchlax's and Eevee's heads into one another! Here's hoping Harley sticks around next saga, his battles are always fun to watch.
I also like it that we caught a tiny bit of Drew and Saori's other matches. It reminds us that they're beating other opponents on screen.
I wasn't expecting May/Drew to battle in this episode, but so far so good. Flygon and Absol seem quite unbeatable, so I don't see how May can pull off beating him. At the most, she should be able to take down at least one of his Pokes, (I assume Combusken's Blaze will allow her to do that), but I hope Drew wipes the floor with her after that.
Pretty good episode. Just seems to me like people want to whine just for the hell of it. Ha, I remember how much the Hoenn league and Hoenn GF were bashed too, and despite some rushing, they were fantastic. Sometimes I think the Pokemon fandom likes WHINING about the episodes more than actually enjoying them.