To be honest, base set Venusaur and especially Blastoise were much more viable in the base set, both had powerful abilities to support their teams. (Venusaur could transport grass energy between your pokemon, which allowed a team to load energy on powerful grass attackers and reduce waste. Meanwhile, Blastoise's Rain Dance allowed unlimited placement of energy on water types, allowing powerful water types to charge in one turn.) However, kids looked at the pretty artwork and giant numbers but ignored the steep 4 energy cost for Charizard's only move, and the fact that one had to discard 2 energies every time the move was used.
Yep, that's exactly my point. The people who weren't interested in playing and only interested in collecting liked the big numbers on Charizard. And at that point, I'd say there was hardly anyone playing, and even fewer people playing properly because TCGs hadn't yet become mainstream, and Pokémon had the "Gotta catch 'em all!" slogan that encouraged people to collect rather than battle. It wasn't until
Yu-Gi-Oh! that properly informed the mainstream that there are games you can play with these cards. Nowadays, it's mostly players and relatively few collectors of the
Pokémon Trading Card Game though. Or maybe the collectors are quieter.
Man... this Splatfest is starting to make me become fond of Pokémon again. It's been a while, but I'm sorely tempted to get back into it. If only I knew where my games went... all I have on-hand are Crystal (with the battery going out) and Platinum.
Though I'm not sure where to start if I do end up getting another game. But that's a matter for another thread.
If you want to be up to date, wait a bit longer and get
Z Version. Or, if you don't get either
OmegaRuby or
AlphaSapphire, as that's the current competition standard and is the most up to date as far as Pokémon (as there are Mega Evolutions introduced in the Hoenn remakes that aren't in the Kalos games and are incompatible with them as a result).