The limited roster of Pokemon for the evil teams...

[Greninjaman]

You know what is weird about the evil teams in the games? The fact they always have such a limited roster of Pokémon. Like, look at this list:
Zubat Line
Wurmple Line
Croagunk Line
Bronzor Line
Houndour Line
Murkrow Line
Abra Line
Stunky Line
Glameow Line
Porygon Line
Sneasel Line
Magikarp Line

These are all the Pokémon that are used in Team Galactic between the grunts, the Scientists, the Commanders, and Cyrus. Would it not make sense for there to be a wider roster? Why are they so limited?
Team Magma/Aqua also had this issue. They only had four lines between them (Zubat, Poochyena, Sharpedo, and Numel).

 

[CuboneKing]

Yeah, you’re right, I think they need to move away from the idea that they can only have “evil” or “grimey” looking Pokémon. In-universe they’re usually known for stealing Pokémon from trainers so a wider variety isn’t even off-theme

 

[Greninjaman]

Yeah. A wider variety of Pokémon would mean that players are not fighting the same Pokémon over and over again.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Cypher and the Aether Foundation deserve credit for being literally the only evil teams to use a ton of variety in species. Granted, the latter could be argued to not count because they were a legitimately noble organization that got corrupted due to their boss's downward spiral, but still.

 

[Cute Charm]

Because they're a bunch of rowdy punks from a rundown town in Poké-Wales and not nessisarily an evil team, one could argue that one of the only times the limited roster worked was for Team Yell.

They were also kind of a replacement for the gym trainers. So having all dark types works to show their alliance.

But yeah, the more organized crime teams really need to expand their teams a bit.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

To be somewhat fair, there might be a logical explanation for the lack of good variety among Villain Team grunts even in-universe: one interpretation I've come across proposes that the bosses of the Villain Teams intentionally restrict their grunts from having stronger/more varied teams just in case one of them gets any funny ideas of staging a revolt or something of the like and the boss can then deal with that more easily. It even makes some sense, since the bosses do tend to have far, far more powerful Pokemon and overall varied teams even when compared to their admins, let alone their mooks. Heck, in Team Rocket's case the "keep my minions in line" explanation might even explain why the grunts have so many Posion-types (even compared to other teams) while their boss is a Ground-type specialist.

 

[Greninjaman]

To be somewhat fair, there might be a logical explanation for the lack of good variety among Villain Team grunts even in-universe: one interpretation I've come across proposes that the bosses of the Villain Teams intentionally restrict their grunts from having stronger/more varied teams just in case one of them gets any funny ideas of staging a revolt or something of the like and the boss can then deal with that more easily. It even makes some sense, since the bosses do tend to have far, far more powerful Pokemon and overall varied teams even when compared to their admins, let alone their mooks. Heck, in Team Rocket's case the "keep my minions in line" explanation might even explain why the grunts have so many Posion-types (even compared to other teams) while their boss is a Ground-type specialist.

Makes sense. After all, if a grunt got, say, a Nidoking as opposed to Nidoran, they would be able to stand a chance against Giovanni due to how strong Nidoking is.