I did actually use Pansear as part of my team... waited to evolve it until it got Crunch, which made it lag behind the rest of my team a bit, but it could still hold its own somewhat. And yeah, it was still on my team straight through the Elite Four, if memory serves. It's kind of lousy how it starts with Incinerate rather than at least Ember, but that's all right.
Pansage by far is the best of the three moveset-wise, though. Having Seed Bomb so early on lets it wreck things that aren't prepared for it.
And I haven't used Panpour much, but... I still remember Simipour wrecking me in the PWT. Hydro Pump is mean... when it manages to hit, that is.