Should main series Pokémon games use real-time combat?

Turn based games are not inherently less demanding of skill than action based games. It's a different type of skill. Yes, you are not being tested on your reaction speed or dexterity in a turn based game. In most turn-based RPGs, the most complex motion you perform is typically navigating menus.

Instead, the game can be a test of strategy. Chosing the right move and when to use it. When to block. Observing attack patterns or figuring out a gimmick to even deal any damage in the first place.

And RNG doesn't eliminate skill. Indeed, managing RNG and playing around it is a skill in itself. Mitigating the risk of failure, maximising the opportunity for success.

And while Pokémon is not the most complex RPG in its core mechanics (it is still a children's game, after all. It has to be accessible, at least on the surface) there is still substantial depth requiring a great deal of skill at a high level. If that's not true and it were all RNG, you wouldn't have consistently high performing players winning tournaments.

And when people complain about grind in Pokémon, and particularly when they say that it necessitates the existence of the exp share, I wonder what their game looks like. Typically I find that they skip all the trainer battles they can and use repels to avoid as many random encounters as possible, then wonder why they are under-levelled.

They skip all of the exp the game rewards you with for playing the game, then complain that they don't get enough exp and that the game is grindy and boring.

I think both the demand for exp share and a change to real-time battles come from the same place: a dislike of RPGs and turn based gameplay.

Which is fine, to each their own.

They are welcome to seek other games that offer gameplay patterns they would prefer. But they insist on playing Pokémon. It is unfortunate that so many Pokémon fans seem to resent the game part of the games that has been core to the experience since the game's inception.

Pokémon's gameplay is by no means perfect and ripe for refinement, but that does not mean we need to throw the baby out with the bath water and make it an entirely different game altogether.