Wow, I really should be more concise (I hope the messages aren't too diluted).
It lasted 2 weeks but yeah it felt like centuries and I believe our community was based on shared "principles", common values which weren't necessarily expressed but which just existed. We were united behind Bird Jesus, we were united against the Ledges, we succeeded and we failed together despite the Chaos. I use very melodramatic phrases but for me, things like Helix and Anarchy mattered a lot, formed the "soul" of TPP.
If Helix is not our God but just another fossil God, if Helix has no meaning other than a silly joke, if you are ready to pretend you never worshipped Helix while you did, nothing makes sense. Our unity is just an illusion and we're not a community : we have no common ground (I already foresee a huge section on how we're a community with our various headcanons and such but allow me to say it's not quite the same as being all united by the Stream). And I like to think taking silly things way too seriously generated a fantastic « culture », I like to think we shouldn't break the theatrical illusion by saying « Hey, we worshipped Helix last year but it was just relevant in the Red run ». I can't pretend I didn't experience Red (which doesn't mean we have to repeat it but to respect it).
If we decide to skip the ledges thanks to Democracy, what is the point ? Don't you think it's negating a huge part of the Stream ? Don't you think I have the right to say we are trampling the ideals of the past ? People from Red were silly enough to care about pointless and boring hurdles and I'm silly enough to still care about them, to be angry when we ignore them. Anyway now, I'm not caring about many things except long pointless posts :p
It sounds really boring with words, it was something to live, to feel. I hope it explained a bit more my rhetorical figures...
Now the important part :
One of the criticism against Anarchy is that most of the time, nothing happens and that we spend way too much time doing boring stuff. For example, some people don't see the point of cutting trees after a few hours while it could be done in little time with Democracy. These people miss the challenge aspect. Your point is slightly different : you don't consider switching the party as an achievement contrary to things like ledges or trees. « It's just tedious button-pressing ». I'll try to show you that Anarchy is necessary for those parts within some other thoughts about how we waste time.
You say there's no interest in spending time switching the party in Anarchy, that it's painful. But I think it's a part of the TPP Gameplay. It's one of the challenges that we must face even if it seems trivial : contrary to most games, things rarely go our way in TPP and it feels... special. Going in circle for hours is boring, spending hours to teach a HM, spending hours to overcome a ledge or a maze can be seen as boring. Cutting a tree is a trivial task. But we do it because that's how this game works : yes, boredom can be fun (don't link me to an online dictionnary please). This stream is also about lack of progress, struggle, pain. TPP has never been a speed run !
And I believe this mentality « this task is too boring in Anarchy ! » that some people call laziness or impatience is one of the things which cheapened the experience. We have already beaten many ledges in Anarchy so why would we bother doing it again when we have Democracy available ? It's way easier to heal in Democracy in order to make progress faster. I want to be there to see progress so let's go as fast as we can. We'll spend hours to move 2 boulders and I don't see how it is entertaining. Yes we can do this in Anarchy but it will take longer and add nothing to the lore/fun/...
We lost the struggle and we progressively adopted Control because it's more efficient, « less boring ». I know it's a paradoxical point but I think the long hours spent doing nothing were a part of the stream. It helped artists to catch on, it gave a chance to every timezone and what would be a play written by monkeys without typos and meaningless sentences ?
Back in my day, you were never sure you would come back to see progress and I think it was a part of the fun. It was slow, it was sometimes annoying but it was definitely a part of the charm. It was this bizarre experiment followed by crazy people who yelled « Don't forget, you're here forever ! ».
And I don't think switching the Party should be an exception especially since it is definitely doable in Anarchy. We switched Parasect to 4th slot once but people had to obtain the « perfect » switch as if TPP was about having the perfect settings (maybe it is now...). We could have grinded with Parasect in the 4th slot, we could have grinded with Parasect in the second slot before attempting to switch again, we could even have grinded with Parasect in the 1st slot (it's silly but wasn't facing the Ghost Tower with an overleveled Pidgeot who couldn't attack a sillier waste of time ?). We could have moved on without stalling one day for the easy way. Does TPP rhyme with easy way ?
This switch is not as harmful as the Zapdos one but it really appears as a stain upon a run which had been fully anarchic until then despite Rocket Hideout and despite the numerous struggles (party rebuilding). It showed (again) that people cared more about progress than about dealing with the TPP way where you can't always easily have perfect things. So yeah, my reaction to this was basically « Shame. ». If you can't accept this kind of boredom, I'm not sure you deserve fun.