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Instead, I think they should have a 7th slot in your team for field abilities only and you can choose to fill it with an HM slave or if you don't have one, you could rent one from an NPC.
Let's Go did this, but I think it only quasi-made sense there because Pikachu/Eevee stays glued to your body even if they're not on your team. In general, the thought of creating a whole extra Pokémon slot that's just there for the sake of clearing obstacles and can't do anything else feels pretty roundabout. It would be far simpler to just democratize a few generic field skills like Strength and Cut so that all or at least most Pokémon could learn them. Surf doesn't necessarily need to be a field skill, the Rotom Bike's Water Mode is one example of how to work around it, although for my part I think they could consider just letting the player actually swim (and then tack on some scuba gear if they want to bring back Diving).
Although in the larger scope of things, I feel like we/they could try thinking outside the paradigm of field move obstacles altogether? Throwing up rocks and trees that need a special move in order to be cleared out is hardly the only way to create puzzles in the overworld, as plenty of other video games can attest. And even Pokémon has had several non-HM examples, primarily with ice sliding puzzles, but also supernatural mazes (Turnback Cave, Winding Woods, Lost Cave, etc.) and some smaller examples (I'm thinking like the parkour stones on a couple of routes in XY, or the season-dependent stuff in Gen 5, which you could probably adapt into being weather-dependent instead). Certain Gym puzzles, like Humilau's lily pads, might also be instructive here. I'd also like puzzle tasks that require interaction with the wildlife, like say there's a Pokémon blocking the road, and you need to go find honey or something to lure it away so you can get through.