Why are people bringing up Gen 1? Gen 1 is not bland. Now the popular thing is to hate G1, and before the popular thing was to only love G1 and hate the new gens. Make up your mind people -_- My opinions, while sometimes radical, at least never change with the winds of popularity.
G1 has way more original designs then G4, and a large number of post-dex monsters were simply evolutions of G1-G3 monsters, thus still tying them to past gens.
I love all the Gens except 4, which is disgusting. Couldn't even assemble a team of Pokemon I like before the national dex, so I skipped the games. Now in G5, I am having massive trouble deciding what to use on a team, and in fact, I may even half to make different teams, because there are so many awesome designs with various good typings! I think I may even like this gen more then G1, however, G1 still boasts some incredibly original designs. Stop hating it just because it's the "in" thing. Likewise, don't just like it because of nostaliga value.