Yeah pokemon has definately been dragged down by the series, especially the new one (diamond and pearl, don't watch it), Ash continues to flawlessly beat Team Rocket for the 1,000,000th time.
A lot people slate the pokemon games for being all the same but a lot of other games do the same thing.
Final Fantasy 1-10 barely changed the core gameplay mechanics at all; the leveling system was always altered but that was about it.
Pokemon games are fun but they usually resort to just spamming your strongest attack from each pokemon. You rarely run out of PP so I never found this to be a problem etc.
I enjoy them but I don't love them; but the tv anime isn't that bad - I actually can still enjoy the odd episode here and there (of the older ones)