Mm, I hardly know 5th gen to be completely honest, I can name most of the Pokemon encountered in Unova but when it comes to naming gym leaders, items and places, I'm hopeless haha. It's probably because I was never really a fan of the generation, it didn't have the same spark for me as the 4th and I'm still trying to understand why. I was pretty lazy back then when I started playing it though so I just think I had lost a little enthusiasm for Pokemon at the time, but now that it's been mentioned, perhaps I'll start playing it again and pick up again from Clay. :3
Oh haha it's alright, when I played Platinum I didn't know HM moves weren't deletable unless you went to the Move Deleter. I ended up teaching my Infernape two HM moves and Close Combat along with a weak fire-type move. The good old days :')! But those sorts of mistakes are also fun to do, it gives you a challenge and also you can learn for next time.
Ah yeah I remember you saying you liked Dawn, I've watched maybe around ten episodes of the Sinnoh saga? I sort of lost my enthusiasm for the anime after it repeatedly aired episodes again and again, it just got really repetitive and boring for me x_x. I still pick Piplup every time I play actually, there's something I like about water-types but I can't figure that out either. Although every once and a while I like trying new things, new experiences!
I don't particularly like working with slow Pokemon either although usually the slowness is often overcome by the fact of its bulkiness and strength, which I like. I used to always aim for the fastest, the speediest, the hardest hitters but I've learnt it's also great to throw in a bit of variety into your team, walls, spike setters, rain dancers, it helps in competitive play at least.
Chimchar hmm. I was never too fond of it surprisingly, something about it threw me off. I thought it's design was cool and sleek but in Platinum there were so many unique fire-types that easily beat Infernape for me such as Houndoom and Magmortar, although yeah it was a great starter.
Piplup was amazing, despite not having the strongest water moves, I liked how the stats were all balanced well instead of focused on maybe one or two. The steel-type thrown in was nice, except the ground weakness was a bit irritating especially when dealing with Pokemon that had Earthquake, that was its flaw for me when facing Cynthia, although that was only one battle so I can't complain too much. :x