Yes, because we want a good story in Pokémon that means that we are violent sociopaths who want Pokémon to be a dark show with absolutely no fun at all and characters to die a lot.
The problem is that the plot is largely made up of retreads. It's literally the same "Ash travels a region with friends to get badges and lose in a League", just insert name of reigion and name/number of friends where applicable. If they just added a new protagonist each region after Johto, then everything noobish Ash did come Unova would make sense: we wouldn't be following a trainer who went to four different regions suddenly being stupid, we'd be following someone who's going on their journey for the first time.
And character personalities typically get either shoved aside for running gags that try too hard to be funny, or are nonexistant. Look at Ash: in the original series, he was brash and hotheaded and prone to mistakes, then in AG, they tried out a new role for Ash (acting as a mentor to May) that would've been interesting if they followed up on it.... but his mistakes that were made due to youthful inexperience were Flanderised into full-blown stupitidy. Now he is, to quote TvTropes, "a bland, can do no wrong, always moral Gary Stu with nothing resembling depth as a character", whose only mistakes are mistakes that someone in his position shouldn't even be making (seriously, FOUR regions, and he doesn't know the basics of catching Pokémon?! Is this even the same Ash?!)
