Type vs. Theme Gyms

The main problem with typed gyms is that they are too easy and predictable. Other than the occasional curve balls of dual typings that resist typical weaknesses or special abilities that mix things up, for the most part you can just train up a Pokémon of the right type advantage and brute force it.

There are other factors as well such as the exp. share making maintaining or changing teams too easy, gym leaders generally being limited to only two-four Pokémon, the now forced "shift" battle style telegraphing the next Pokémon and allowing you to compensate by pre-emptively changing Pokémon and poor AI. The new non-linear gym progression in SV, lacking level scaling, has forced gyms to generally hover around the same lower levels to accommodate clearing gyms in different orders.

But the former issue would be mitigated by not restricting teams to a single type. It would make the whole thing more challenging and encourage more varied teams and strategic approaches.

I want both

like COME ON it is so easy to do themed gyms

1 make the first three gyms type gyms. Introduce players to advantages and disadvantages and the like. Subtly hint at later gyms being more complex via trainer dialogue and make the gym leaders talk during battle like they did with that battle restaurant in Pokémon X if they can avoid optional trainers

2 two trainer fights with your partner/partners (Y’know, Gary/Shauna blah blah) to introduce you to the idea of themed battles. Teams based around weather maybe, or around a specific ability

3 Boom. Theme gyms. It’s that easy

I think it would be strange if they abandoned gyms being themed around a type altogether. I think what I’d like to see more of is gym leaders that clearly have a type theme but have a couple or so Pokémon that are there more to help their preferred type. Flint was a good example of this (even though he was an Elite Four member) what with him having some Pokémon that weren’t actually fire type but had fire moves that could be boosted by Sunny Day.

I think it would be great to do away with gyms revolving around type. Hear me out.

If a gym has a type, you go in leading with a member of your party that counters it and then sweep. Dual typings can throw a wrench in the equation, but for the most part it's not very engaging. Youre forced to lean on 1 member of your party.

If gyms revolved around a theme instead of being tied to a type, then that opens the door for more possibilities. It becomes less likely that you have to lean on only 1 member of your party because your opponents dont use teams sharing a type.

That said, I havent really thought about potential "themes" so in practice I'm not sure it would yield more diverse teams to go up against. That would depend on the creativity of the people designing the games.

I have to say that themed gyms might ironically blend into each other. I have to agree with @Wryl_909 and @D-ManBlue when they suggest having gyms with a main typing but with other Pokémon that contribute to the type/theme of the gym. The Paldean gym leaders are a good example of this. Brassius using Sudowoodo and Iono using Mismagius are some that come to mind.