Lol you realize if they banned forest instead of shiftry forest would have never seen a day of legality
...not a concern when a particular card is broken. We were stuck with
Lysandre's Trump Card for what, six months before it was finally banned? Thankfully, they didn't try to find a "work around" by banning something else.
As for Archeops, everyone and their mother (literally, Some moms took up the game) played Hex Maniac so I don't think "we banned it so people didn't have to run counters to it" was the motive, rather, it was banned because of the rise of Pokemon GX cards. TPCI thought that Archeops made the game un-un by preventing people from using their Pokemon GX so they got rid of it
Didn't quote the first part because I agreed with it and this is already gonna be a long post.
The official announcement makes it clear it is the specific
Archeops +
Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick combo that is an issue. I do believe the the powers-that-be are trying to promote more play of Evolutions as well, and especially with Evolutions of Grass-Types losing
Forest of Giant Plants, they decided it was time to let this go. If those designing the cards hadn't made Basic Pokémon so fast, strong, etc. and had not made Evolving Pokémon 99.9% filler, they might be hearty enough that
Maxie's Hidden Ball Trick could have been the one to receive the ban. Oh, and while that is just a guestimate, the 99% isn't mere hyperbole; I think it may literally be about 1 in 100 Evolving Pokémon that get a worthwhile stat or effect so they aren't pure filler, and the numbers are even lower for those that have
both worthwhile stats and effect.
Addendum: Also, just because a card
can be countered is not always the same as it being well-balanced. That most decks
have to run
Hex Maniac because of how potent
multiple Abilities are may be balanced, but it reminds me of kids making up rules for a game on the fly. You get outlandish effects maybe balanced by other outlandish effects, when the game would be more fun lacking both.