Issues with Pokemon Design

I really enjoy the Pokemon games; however, there are certain design decisions that really annoy me. Hence, a list. These are in no particular order.

1. HMs. Now, the basic function of an HM (a reusable move teaching machine) is nice. The problem is their requirement. Navigation of the world requires their use. Yes, you can get away with probably having only a flyer in your party, but if you want full maneuverability, you'll want two Pokemon (2/6 of your party, 8/24 move slots) that know nothing but different HM moves. The biggest problem that I have with them, though, is how terrible most of them are. There are two really good ones, Surf and Waterfall; a couple decent ones, Strength, Rock Climb, and Fly; and a bunch of overall pretty mediocre to bad ones, which are the rest. I really wish there was another method of doing this, as I don't really like hauling HM slaves around with me.

2. The "Full party problem." What I'm referring to here is when you encounter an NPC that wishes to give you a Pokemon, and you have a full party. The Pokemon cannot be sent directly to your PC storage for some inexplicable reason, meaning you have to go and drop off something and then trek all of the way back to retrieve whatever Pokemon the NPC was trying to give to you. This is very irritating, but thankfully, it doesn't come up much.

3. TM availability. Simply put, I want every TM purchasable at some end game point. This goes for Masterballs as well.

4. Too many currencies. The most recent games as of this writing, SoulSilver and HeartGold, have at least six currencies: Pokedollars, coins, Battle Points (BP), Athlete Points (whatever the points you get from the Pokeathlon are called), Heart Scales (sure, you can only buy one thing, but it's still money), and Shards (for buying berries). I wouldn't be surprised if I missed some. Seriously, this is ridiculous. The worst ones are the ones that are annoying or challenging to get, but you need for very, very useful items. BP and coins, I'm looking at you.

5. End game content. Once you beat the Elite Four, there really isn't that much to do. There are a lot of things you CAN do, but the fun part (fighting against trainers with Pokemon that are probably a higher level than you) is pretty much gone. The best solution that I can think of is an area that has randomly generated (or a large pool with a selection process) trainers to battle. They should have Pokemon that are a level or two above the average level of your team. This would be pretty awesome, in my opinion. Heck, this could be tied into the story idea that you are the Champion. Why wouldn't other trainers challenge you? You should be able to take on balanced teams as the Champion. This makes sense, and would be awesome.

6. Bloody scheduling. Seriously, too much in the more recent games is time based. Sure, you can manipulate that fairly easily, but why should you have to? If you don't know what I'm talking about, then look at this page for a particularly good example of how ridiculous this can get. And that is just scratching the surface.

7. Event only Pokemon. I want every Pokemon to be CATCHABLE. I don't want to have to rely on some sort of event to be able to get a Pokemon. See: Mew, Celebi, Darkrai, Shaymin, and others.

8. Wild Pokemon levels. This kind of relates to the end game content thing I was talking about. Simply, I want an area where I can find level 80+ wild Pokemon.

9. Rechallenging trainers should be made easier, with better indications of who is wanting to refight you (such as an exclamation point over his or her head), and better directions as to where the trainer is.

There are a few more things that I would like (such as a console game with all of the areas, real-time 3D-fighting-game style battles, and the ability to play an adult instead of a 10 year old), but these nine things are areas that I would really like to see changed.