If you wanted proof that R/S/E barely had any major flaws, it's this thread. Nearly all flaws posted here are either nitpicky (feebas, guys? really? that's all you could think of?), easily negligible (water, which is no worse than caves - you know, like how many kanto and johto got, but hoenn barely did? the water was the replacement. and kanto and particularly johto STILL had a lot of water anyway) and something that plagues other games in the series. (physical/special split pre-gen 4, which i admit is dated but it's easy to adjust to anyway.)
The one thing I could agree on is Cerberus' post about the awful movepool for most Pokemon, but really this is a problem with a lot of Pokemon games anyway because there just way too many Pokemon that don't get any good moves until much higher levels anyway. B/W fixed that with reusable TMs...except for the fact you have to find the TM in the first place, and all the good moves are found later on, you might as have already gotten the moves you wanted by level up. And you need a guide, screw that.
And I honestly don't get the post game complaints. This is a complain I've seen thrown at EVERY Pokemon game anyway, so it's really overblown. And before you give me G/S/C, no. Kanto is small and terrible in that game. Emerald's Battle Frontier actually was fun because it encouraged players to widen their playstyle and actually develop their skills and be challenged, and if you were intimidated by that then it's really your fault and you shouldn't call the post game empty. Whereas Kanto was basically a run down of really weak trainers and Pokemon until you get to Red. Battle Frontier >>>>>>>>>>>> Gimped Kanto, any day. Platinum and Emerald have the best post game by far because of the battle frontier. B/W went back to Johto's idea of a "post-game" by adding cities that are just there. MORE cities does NOT equal to a better post game guys. To me a good post game is something that'll offer the player endless variety in its system and something to do to test your skills, something like the Battle Frontier. I don't know about B/W2 since I haven't beaten it, but if it had something like Battle Frontier then fantastic.
The removal of the day/night system! I really loved that add in gen II and to see it disappear in the next batch of games, not even to be reinstated for FR/LG was very disappointing. I guess it had something to do with the size of tje game in the cartridge or? Anyways, that's the thing I dislike most about Gen III.
Thank god it was gone actually. This feature adds NOTHING but limits, and for what? Realism? Applying realism to game design is a bad, bad idea and should never happen (unless it was designed around realism, which Pokemon isn't)
Look at it this way. Why should I wait until evening to catch me a Murkrow? Why stop progressing and wait until then? And then, why should I sleep and wake up next morning to trigger this event that could help me out? It's terrible. R/S/E had mostly everything any time you want and that's great. The day/night system is just limits for no justified reason. And then gen 4 took it to the extreme. This is one of my least favorite thing about Pokemon by far and one of the main flaws in its design, and one of the biggest reasons why Emerald is the only Pokemon I can replay. And before telling me that I can change the settings -
why should I do that to begin with?