Same as you. Granted i'm not playing in LA, SF or NY or any of those hardcore cities, but no matter where I went in germany, be it for fun or events, most people just didn't need 1500 even though they've been 40 for a year+

In our own small community, there's not a single person at 1500...most people don't even have the upgrades bought to 1500 cause they don't need it and if I go to other communities for CD or the 3 hour birds it's always been the same.

People just send away what they don't need while keeping stuff like Unown, legendaries and shinies.

What they don't do is hoard pokemon for future CDs in hope of them getting a better move or because they think they need to keep every pokemon with every gender and every possible moveset.

Honestly someone from Niantic should really make a Strawpoll about it and post it in every big pokemon go related subreddit. I'm not gonna go through that hazzle. But just by pure logic of casuals outnumbering hardcore players it makes sense that there's more people without 1500 than with 1500 pokemon...