To play devil's advocate for a second, I can understand the part of his logic that if you use popular Pokemon, more people will be behind the mechanic, because they can play with their favorite Pokemon and make him/her stronger.
But that's where the logic ends. It just makes broken Pokemon even more broken, and useless Pokemon (for online battling) even more useless. The only sure way to be able to use those kinds of Pokemon (like say Far'fetched), is to spam stat boosting moves and abilities, and Baton Pass-like moves, which sucks, because it takes an incredible amount of stalling and isn't worth the trouble.
But that's where the logic ends. It just makes broken Pokemon even more broken, and useless Pokemon (for online battling) even more useless. The only sure way to be able to use those kinds of Pokemon (like say Far'fetched), is to spam stat boosting moves and abilities, and Baton Pass-like moves, which sucks, because it takes an incredible amount of stalling and isn't worth the trouble.