I have to agree, I was drawn to it for it's sheer customization. You had to put a lot of time, thought and love into the game to get the proper outcome you wanted. Literally every single fight is different, and I loved that no matter how many times you played through the game, different Pokemon appeared and different stats occured.
Some people look over the cutsie animal designs and focus on the real gameplay, the Pokemon themselfs just add to the charm and remind you it's just not that serious, a real recreational game franchise if you want it to be, and a very competitive world with just a few switches on the PC.
How Tajiri put all this into one game is beyond me and these games definetely deserve a place in the game history books.