What they really need more than anything is to have some mechanic that makes your pokemon feel like they are 'yours'. That, more than anything is what I remember making me love pokemon when I was a kid. I was able to take some crappy low level pokemon and train it into something very powerful. I'm sure everyone remembers their first pokemon that they trained up, and even if it was a bad choice, you could still make it powerful in the game. That's even what the show was about. Taking some crappy pikachu and some crappy trainer, and becoming something great. Niantic completely missed the allure of pokemon.

In this game, the pokemon are nothing memorable. And for most people, the gyms are boring so you almost never even see your pokemon. How am I supposed to like my 'team' of pokemon when I never see them and never interact with them.

They could have made the game focused on other aspects of the pokemon world that you only kind of touch in the main games, but instead you are more or less a heartless collector of pokemon.