You'd be right that the original lacks content, but D/P and RSE don't exactly have the best Post-E4 Content. All of these different berries, poffins, and contests are a huge waste of time. The GTS is stupid, because everyone wants a Palkia for their Rattata. The Battle Zone sucks as Battle Towers/Frontiers always have.
The new PokeBalls with different features and breeding are nice, but that's all old news. 8 years old, to be precise. Capsules/seals really didn't hold my attention; I think they're pointless. Chaining is very tedious and a huge waste of time.
The new legendaries are "tons" of crap. Giratina? Cresselia? Shaymin? Darkrai? Arceus? Phione? Mesprit? All garbage if you ask me. Why do you want more stuff between the Gyms? You travel across the entire region just to get your third freaking badge. So many pointless towns; Floaroma, Sandgem, etc. Mt. Coronet is also uncalled for. Who wants to spend half of the game in a cave?
So in other words, because you think those extra features weren't as good as they could be, you'd rather have a game with NONE of them. And you play pokemon just to beat the gyms. That's boring. I don't pick up the game and get all impatient about not being at the third gym already, because I actually enjoy the whole game for what it is. Fine, let's do away with Floaroma town and Sandgem town and Mt Coronet (which also means do away with Probopass and Magnezone, and Dialga, Palkia and Arceus).
You know what? Here's what they should make for the next game. A new region with 8 towns, all connected to each other in a giant line, so you don't even have to change directions. Then have the Elite 4 at the end and then game over, sell it back to the store and play COD4 and WoW for 9 more years. Everything else is useless. No point in having people in the game that serve no purpose, no point in having towns and routes where you have to actually travel to get where you're going, no point in having any extra features or legendaries, which means no storyline.
Sounds like a great game huh?
BTW, as much as I hate competitive battling, berries are the only way to really be able to EV train a pokemon, so I wouldn't call them useless. Poffins are the only way to get Milotic so you can't complete the Pokedex without those.
The GTS IS kind of annoying with the offers they have but it's far from useless.
Pokemon I have obtained through the GTS that I could not have gotten elsewhere, which I traded pokemon I could have and DID get elsewhere:
Palkia (I have Diamond)
Regice
Feebas* (I know I could have but it's freakin near impossible, would take many many hours)
Bulbasaur
Charmander
Squirtle
Chikorita
Cyndaquil
Totodile
Treecko
Torchic
Mudkip
Chimchar
Piplup (I chose Turtwig)
Alakazam
Machamp
Golem
Gengar (Can catch one if you have a GBA game I think, which I don't)
Ursaring (don't own Pokemon Emerald)
And I'm still working on more.
So, in one corner, we have NO GTS, NO WIFI TRADES WITH ANYONE, NO GETTING OTHER STARTERS.
In the other corner, we have GTS, TONS OF RIDICULOUS TRADE REQUESTS, OCCASIONAL AWESOME TRADES.
I'll take the latter, thank you.