I'm one of the nonmeta people you're searching, probably.

I don't play with Ex. That's what I decided time ago. It is not because of pride it is because I don't like how Ex pokemon are played. As for the record I have tried ex ( when I played with a deck out straight from the deckbuilding for fun) and I found using rayquaza to be really boring.

As for deckbuilding. I normally work with a single type and a main idea of what I want to get (a strong deck, a fast deck, a mischievous deck etc) and adjust cards acordig to it. Sometimes I try deck before they're really fixed to see how cards would work together (specially trainers) ans change it according with the results. I don't really center my strategy in a single pokemon or a evolutory chain, I like my game to change according to my luck with cards. Optimized? Hell no. Fun? Yes a lot. It feels more similar to playing with Dark hammer and theme decks in general than playing current meta decks

As for win/lose ratio. Most of my decks are around 50% of so. I have won several timea againts meta as I have been defeated several times by meta as well. I don't play tournaments with these decks since tournaments are for competition. I play theme tournaments instead

I understand people who want to win. That's the definition of a competitive person after all. But I play PTCGO for the fun and to take breaks for harder tasks. You can't really take how a person plays as a way how they work in life. After all you're not living "for fun" but to earn a salary or get good grades.

As for the lack of skill I think It goes both sides. I can't really tell about people complainig about Ex as I don't play those but I have seen plenty of great strategist playing without meta and exs out there. I have also seen some great ones with meta as well. But if you ask me witch side hides more unskillfull people is probably the meta one in my experience. There are a certain amount of people with really strong meta decks who can't really use them.

People you see with variations of theme decks are probably new players who are saving packs for a good meta deck (you should know how expensive a Shaymin is nowadays) and for the cards that do not work together is maybe that they got a new ex and they want to try it.

As a conclusion I would say that not every single player wants to be really competitive. I prefer having a long hard battle than a easy one. Sometimes I even get sursprised of people doing a grreat comeback and winning me at the end. That's great when you find somebody able to counter such situations. Of course it woud be strange for people with non meta decks to think they're the very best since meta has been proved to be the best decks arround but it is great for people to enjoy the game on their own way.