Nah I'm not a huge fan of the Gym sets (VS is cool) but at least those sets committed to their theme fully. Even with SP Pokemon, there was a set where it was all Team Galactic stuff, a set with all the Sinnoh Gym Leaders and Elite Four, a set with the Frontier Brains and Cynthia. Even though those sets weren't all SP Pokemon unlike Gym/VS they were still deliberate with what they were showcasing. It's the combination of this set having only four Trainers, the four Trainers having absolutely nothing to do with each other, AND having non-Trainer Pokemon thrown in too that makes it all a bit of a flop for me.
Like, it's called Battle Partners right? And three of the four characters are Rival-esque characters? Get Iono out of there and use other Rival characters like Barry, Cheren/Bianca, etc. Make it all Rival characters. Then in the Rocket set you can have Dark Pokemon and owner's Pokemon of hero characters like Red/Green, Ethan/Lyra and whatever the SM protags are named (due to the Rainbow Rocket thing in USUM). Then in Heat Wave Arena you can use Elite Four members and Champions with Cynthia being the headliner. The way it's being implemented so far is just whatever.
