No I haven't felt that, when he did confront Ash on his faults I was more feeling "Ash prove yourself if you want to stand up for your believes, otherwise you won't change much of Pauls opinion of you or how you deal with your Pokemon and Pokemon in general". Then go and found out he is just as vet as Ash makes me feel Paul is reinforcing his point even more so. Trip on the other hand I felt the writers were at fault so when he insulted Ash and Kanto in general I was more a long the lines of "Writers you are making Ash look bad, so you better turn this around soon". Generally I don't care if another character insults Ash cause he gets nooby after every Saga these days so its just something I am used too until they change their stance and give him progression. Then if someone insults him like Trip I will be like "He won this, and is the Champion of this Conference. But he is not, he is the guy that loses over and over.