pokemon DPP really isn't as good as i remember

Recently, I've been on a bit of a pokemon kick caused by playing FRLG just for the lulz and relapsing into being a full on fan of the series. While i never ended up finishing FRLG (the crappy $7 repro cart died at around celadon city and it seems to be fully cooked. can't fix. sadge.), i have played the 2 subsequent regions, HGSS for johto and RSE for hoenn and while i think all of the games up until that point weren't perfect (seriously what the hell is johto's level curve who decided ~600exp per wild fight with a needlessly convoluted rematch system was a good idea in the lategame), they've still been quite enjoyable regardless. That is, until DPP.

It's no secret that the sinnoh games are slow as hell. The battling has a noticeable delay to more or less every movement, HP bars take eons to deplete and the movement speed feels just slow enough to feel weird compared to everything that came before and after it. But that's just the start of it! I just beat the fourth gym, about 10 hours in with a party all levelled to about 30-ish and boy oh boy it's just felt like a slog. Part of it is 100% my fault, trying to marathon a series as formulaic as pokemon is the opposite of a good idea, but, even compared to the stupid games like HGSS or FRLG if you chose a charmander, it just feels a lot less interesting.

I've only done minimal grinding, mainly just to level up a buizel only to find that they're kind of a glass cannon minus the cannon, mainly just levelling through the numerous encounters. While i personally despise grinding, i think the exp gains at what is practically half way through the game are a bit extreme, i think they got it pretty good with RSE where by the time i reached the e4 most of my pokes were just 5 levels below what i'd need to comfortably prevail. It's been ages since i've played this gen so i can't quite remember how the e4 goes but good god if i'm eating levels up like spaghetti at this point i'm inclined to believe that every e4 trainer is gonna have a full team of level 100 pokes! Another issue is that because how easy it is to be a tad overlevelled for every gym, they're really really easy to completely and utterly stomp.

furthermore, sinnoh isn't just as interesting as i remember it being. it doesn't really seem to have it's own unique thing like previous gens. It's sorta just like kanto but if the route you took through it was just a tad more convoluted. At this point in the game, team galactic has been an annoyance more than anything, with only 1 (one) dungeon thus far. It probably gets better even if just judging by the designs of palkia and dialga but 4 badges in and it just seems like a slog imo.

As previously mentioned, a lot of this comes down to me trying to marathon a series like pokemon. I'm 100% taking a break after this. But regardless, DPP just isn't doing it for me so far.