Chatot is cool for a few reasons. First of all, he is free retreat. You have NO IDEA how important having at least 1 free retreater on bench at all times is. A primary example of this is if you just got KO'd, but you don't know what to promote. You don't have to risk that important draw... just promote Chatot. If you get your attacker, retreat and start smashing. If not, do something else. Next, Chatot has a great attack that serves the purpose of the "I don't have anything else to do so I am going to draw" attack. It is just really amazing. Finally, if you play DCE, you can lock a Spiritomb player for a few turns when they are ready to retreat. You can even win the game with Chatot alone if the Tomb player is dumb enough not to play a warp energy and/or they have all of their warp energies discarded or prized. Chatot is a great early starter and is just fun. I would only use 1 in a deck, however. They aren't great in numbers.
Also, I dislike your statement "replacing claydol with chatot". People need to learn that metagames aren't made by replacing. They evolve (hahaha) on their own. If we continue with the "replace" mind set, we would still be playing basic pokemon that do a damage for 1-2 energy, lots of draw trainers, and ways to completely wall damage (intake 10/turn). Once again, that is not happening... just move on guys