I lost my original post and had to type this out again so sorry if it sucks, thank you PC for crashing
More is not always better, and frequency of appearance is not really progressive change. The quality of the NPCs has not improved even marginally, is my point. Less is sometimes more - I mean, a lot of NPCs who aren't central to the story of games get massive amounts of popularity because they ooze personality through their dialogue and design, or whatever. The more you see a character, the better you get to know them, but if there is nothing about them that is really worth knowing...it falls flat. It fell VERY flat with pretty much every major NPC from Gen V onwards, because GF forgot to give these characters actual personalities. In the old days it wasn't a problem, ecause it was VERY clear where the focus was. Now that they're drawing attention to this by including them more often, it's becoming more and more apparent how shoddy the quality of that really is.
I honestly don't think GF does know what it's doing, because the player is having to hunt for these mechanics, or they're getting minimal focus or explanation - remember the battle styles in Gen V? How about sky battles in Gen VI? - and instead we're getting bogged down in the same story again with banal dialogue with NPCs that are about as interesting as the townspeople who just repeat the same 2-3 lines of dialogue each and every time you talk to them. I realise it's a matter of perspective as to whether the NPCs are better or not. But they can't cower behind the "focus on the gameplay!" excuse any more when that gameplay is getting minimal exposure in amongst the banal dialogue. The games have not changed, but the FOCUS of the games has, and it's suffering for it unless you can tune it right out, which you shouldn't have to do, because if they're going to change the focus they should put some effort in. Effort is not "we'll just have these NPCs appear more often and say more than 2-3 lines". Yeah, they know the gameplay is what sells the games. So they ignore it because they can afford to and push the weakest part of Pokemon games - the story and characters - repeatedly in our faces. It's unnecessary, alright.
Although yes, I will agree that it is unlikely Gladion will get any significant development because of this, meaning he'll remain one more bland design in hundreds of other bland designs, without any personality whatsoever. That doesn't make him any worse than the rest of them, but it definitely does not make him better.