I see a lot of hate for baby Pokémon here and whilst I agree with anyone who says Chingling is a joke, for most others you're WRONG! (Well, I wouldn't miss Igglybuff either).
A long-time answer I've held to this question is Sunflora. I've hated Sunkern practically ever since I got into Pokémon, and learning that Sunflora actually was supposed to be a single-stage Pokémon in the G/S beta only fueled my desire for Sunkern to be wiped off the records. Sunflora is, and will always be, a single-stage Pokémon in my heart; all Game Freak needs to do is make it available to catch in the wild with no ugly seed in the middle.
Blasphemy! Sunkern is a god amongst Pokémon, a creature so perfect Arceus briefly considered just…giving up after that.
Admittedly, if Sunkern didn't exist I wouldn't clamor for its inclusion. But I really like it, even though it is almost unusable once your opponents pass lv. 10. This might just be HGSS bias though, it looks so cute following!
There are way too many Generation I three-stage Grass/Poison-type evolutoinary lines for my liking, so I'd also trim down the Oddish line by removing Oddish. I wouldn't remove Gloom because it's much more unique than Oddish is.
Agree on trimming this line, but I'd actually remove Gloom - given the design of the original trio its very obviously going to bloom into a Vileplume. If we're having it two-stage, Oddish makes more sense - its blue body stays if you use a Leaf Stone, whilst its green leaves have become Bellossom's skirt if you use a Sun Stone. Also its cute!
I'd cut these:
-Vanillish/Vanilluxe
-Finizen/Palafin. Making these two separate Pokémon is a total joke, could have been similar to Wishiwashi's (Schooling): just one Pokémon with two forms, with Zero to Hero not working until reaching a specific level.
Figure I should make my mass-quote not
entirely argumentative, so in principle I agree with both of these. But then you look at the ice cream line and Vanillish->Vanilluxe just looks right, whilst Vanillite is cute. Maybe instead Vanilluxe should have been more powerful, perhaps with a 580 BST?
As for Finizen / Palafin…yes, if you could somehow make it so Zero to Hero doesn't apply right from the off, remove Finizen. Although I like thinking about them in nature - a Gyarados or something attacks them, the first "Finizen" flip-turns away, the others are easily bested…BAM! Dolphin-Genie-Superman smacks it clean out of the ocean!
Most cocoon Pokemon feel unnecessary. I'd keep one just to have a cocoon Pokemon and punt the rest.
Related to cocoon Pokemon: Silcoon & Cascoon being two different Pokemon. Keep one and delete the other =P
Boltund. I'd rather have Yamper be single stage than have this thing.
Type: Null. I would've been fine with just Silvally.
Bounsweet. I like both it's evos, but Bounsweet looks too out of place to me.
Vullaby/Rufflet/Larvesta. The evo's could easily be single stage.
Eelektrik is just unnecessary in it's line.
Trapinch. Let's just start this line at Vibrava.
Poliwhirl. Poliwrath is basically an angry Poliwhirl. Let's just drag the split evo down to Poliwag.
Better cut this off here before it gets too long lol
Coming Silcoon and Cascoon is the most agreeable thing I've seen in this thread. You keep the gimmick, losing something that in BDSP's lighting can't even be distinguished half the time!
Yamper and Boltund should be separate species. Yamper is adorable (Brooklyn Nine-Nine fan so I named mine Cheddar, refused to evolve it). Boltund has its appeal but they just have no similarities, which would be ok if that's the point like Bagon->Shelgon->Salamence, or Karrablast-> Escavalier and Shelmet->Accelgor…but its not. Make Yamper a slower, bulkier Electric-type, keep Boltund as is, but not related.
Type: Null and Silvally…admittedly I've not played Gen VII but I got them in SwSh and I'd honestly not care if they were Dexited from Gen IX onwards and never came back. Nothing particularly infuriating about them, but nothing good either.
Vullaby and Rufflet would make more sense as baby Pokémon added in a later generation, their lines are encountered so late in BW Mandibuzz and Braviary absolutely should have been single-stage. I like Larvesta though, it maintains the scarcity and mystique around Volcarona by having it evolve comically late. Explains why one would be so revered as to be sealed in a temple for hundreds of years.
Eelektrik I could lose, yeah. But I kinda feel like Tynamo -> Eelektross does need a middle stage, its incredibly drastic otherwise.
Trapinch turning into a Dragon is so weird, I love it. WRONG
I like Poliwhirl, like the whole line despite rarely using them, but I could absolutely get behind that change. Just buff Poliwag's stats a little (don't even make it strong, just up its SpA from 40 to 60 or something, maybe a little bit more HP).
Cosmoem. Accomplishes nothing.
Edit: And Dragonite. Make that its own thing.
Not played Gen VII, but I find it neat that Cosmog and Cosmoem eventually blossoming into Solgaleo / Lunala is kinda like legendaries undergoing the stereotypical early-forest-Bug-type life cycle. But yeah, wouldn't miss it.
Dragonite's shiny should be blue. That it has this ugly green instead infuriates me. But I like the line as is. Except shiny Dragonite. Dratini and Dragonair's pink shinies are really good, could we not at least have kept that scheme instead GF?
Electrode: Voltorb already does the Poke Ball aesthetic pretty well. I don't understand what "a Poke Ball but upside down" is supposed to represent. Like, maybe if they opted for a Great or Ultra Ball it would have made sense. But they didn't.
I like Electrode more in its sprites than Voltorb but yeah, it is weird. Makes no sense when you find them as Poké Ball / items in the handheld games either given the inverted colour scheme.
I'll maybe offer up some 'dex culls of my own, but for now I'll just suggest two as this is a very long post:
Pansage / Pansear / Panpour should just be one species with forme differences. You still get the same gimmick with the gym and the synergy with your starter, you still get three separate evolutions using the stones, but just as 3 versions of one monkey. Also opens up the possibility of them making it into a less-favoured version of Eevee without seriously bloating the 'dex, if someone at GF really liked them.
Regidrago / Regieleki. I haven't played their quest on SwSh so maybe there's some good lore, but to me they make very little sense as part of the Titans. You went from three elements and a humanoid mechanism for continental drift, to 4 elements, somehow a Dragon, and the humanoid mechanism for continental drift. Just…odd.
