Frost's post in the Gen 6 starter topic inspired me to make this. I was going to just post it in that topic, but it eventually evolved into an idea for its own thread, so here it is.

It had to do with the tier placement of the starters in Smogon's tier system. Delving into all the history of this myself, I found some rather interesting things.

In Gen 1, there were only three tiers: OU (Overused), UU (Underused), and Uber. (I'm not going to be counting the NFE tier at all in this.) Basically every fully-evolved Pokemon fit into either OU or UU, and Uber was reserved for Mewtwo and Mew.
In Gen 2, the BL (Borderline) tier got added - it served as a sort of holding place for Pokemon that were too good for UU, but not good enough for OU. Up until Gen 5 came out, BL always had a substantial amount of members (20+). Mewtwo and Mew got joined by Lugia, Ho-Oh, and Celebi in the Uber tier, and with each successive generation, they'd be joined by every 600+ BST legendary, plus 1 or 2 other things.
Gen 3 rolls around and we end up getting another new tier: NU (Never-Used), so if you can imagine that UU is lousy, NU must be terrible. Gen 4 kept the tiers mostly the same, throwing in the Little Cup for lulz.
Gen 5 added two new tiers to the system - RU (Rarely-Used), as a sort of border between Pokemon who weren't good enough for UU but still weren't not used at all, and BL2 (Borderline 2), which like the original BL tier isn't really a tier at all, but rather those that are too good for RU but not good enough for UU - and both BL and BL2 now only have a small handful in each.

Blah blah blah.
Now, I'm sure many of you love the starters. Where do they end up fitting into the grand scheme of things? Well, let's take a look through time, shall we?

(These figures are as of the date of posting: 15 Jan 2013.)

Gen 1: Venusaur: UU; Charizard: UU; Blastoise: UU (0% OU; 100% UU)
Gen 2: Venusaur: UU; Charizard: BL; Blastoise: UU; Meganium: BL; Typhlosion: BL; Feraligatr: UU (0% OU; 50% BL; 50% UU)
Gen 3: Venusaur: BL; Charizard: BL; Blastoise: UU; Meganium: UU; Typhlosion: BL; Feraligatr: UU; Sceptile: BL; Blaziken: BL; Swampert: OU (11% OU; 56% BL; 33% UU)
Gen 4: Venusaur: UU; Charizard: NU; Blastoise: UU; Meganium: NU; Typhlosion: NU; Feraligatr: UU; Sceptile: UU; Blaziken: UU; Swampert: OU; Torterra: UU; Infernape: OU; Empoleon: OU (25% OU; 0% BL; 50% UU; 25% NU)
Gen 5: Venusaur: OU; Charizard: NU; Blastoise: UU; Meganium: NU; Typhlosion: RU; Feraligatr: RU; Sceptile: RU; Blaziken: Uber; Swampert: UU; Torterra: NU; Infernape: OU; Empoleon: UU; Serperior: NU; Emboar: RU; Samurott: NU (7% Uber; 13% OU; 0% BL; 20% UU; 27% RU; 33% NU)


Venusaur: UU > UU > BL > UU > OU
Charizard: UU > BL > BL > NU > NU
Blastoise: UU > UU > UU > UU > UU
Meganium: n/a > BL > UU > NU > NU
Typhlosion: n/a > BL > BL > NU > RU
Feraligatr: n/a > UU > UU > UU > RU
Sceptile: n/a > n/a > BL > UU > RU
Blaziken: n/a > n/a > BL > UU > Uber
Swampert: n/a > n/a > OU > OU > UU
Torterra: n/a > n/a > n/a > UU > NU
Infernape: n/a > n/a > n/a > OU > OU
Empoleon: n/a > n/a > n/a > OU > UU
Serperior: n/a > n/a > n/a > n/a > NU
Emboar: n/a > n/a > n/a > n/a > NU
Samurott: n/a > n/a > n/a > n/a > NU


I am sure you have noticed a few things here. Gens 1 and 2 were mostly the same, not many weird tricks or anything to it. The tiers of the starters at the time stay fairly consistent, being either UU or BL for half of them. Gen 3 had a bit of a shift, given the introduction of natures and EVs, but still most of it stayed the same for the starters, although Swampert managed to shine magnificently due to a number of qualities blessed to him: solid defensive stats AND typing (Water/Ground is incredibly good, having only 1 weakness).

With Gen 4, a whole lot of things changed. The physical/special split happened, rendering some strategies possible and others impossible...but that wasn't the biggest bit. Granted, there were many other changes, like the release of Snow Warning and another Sand Streamer, but by far the biggest culprit of change was Stealth Rock - which alone has put Charizard down into NU, a position from which he will never recover. In addition, all the other starters, save the Water ones, dropped down a tier as well, whereas the newcomer starters showed amazing prominence, just like the Gen 3 starters did - Infernape and Empoleon were constantly on the watchlist. And, nearing the end of Gen 4, Smogon ended up banning two non-legendaries from the ranks of OU (Garchomp was the very first ban of Gen 4, Salamence the last, and the Lati@s were in the middle), something that up until that time was completely unprecedented.

Gen 5's release made the existence of the power creep all the more real. Right off the bat, Blaziken, a starter who had lived in relative obscurity, shot straight into the Uber tier soon after Gen 5's release, being the first and so far the only starter to do so. This action ended up setting a precedent that was alluded to back in Gen 4 with Garchomp but was and has been brought up many times: stats alone don't make a Pokemon powerful; abilities play a vital role in that too. You've got things like Blaziken, Excadrill, Genesect, and Thundurus-I banished to the uber tier (Garchomp was here too for a time), where monsters like Kyurem-B, as well as the Drought and Drizzle abilities, are given free reign in OU. More to the point, as far as the starters went, the other starter who jumped up (Venusaur) did so because of a new ability he was given (Chlorophyll), just like Blaziken (Speed Boost), and the only other starter who held his place, Infernape, did so because he remained consistently good as he did in Gen 4. And the newcomer starters end up starting out as totally and utterly sucking, poor things.

I don't want this to derail too much into a "should X have happened", so let me get to the point. Here's the question I pose.

Based on where the starter Pokemon are in the metagame tier placing right now, what are their placements indicative of? Does it say that starter Pokemon are destined forever to be mediocre, with the only real exceptions being new moves or abilities being granted to them in subsequent generations (with the Gen 3 and 4 starters standing out in particular as just being all-around good)? Or is it a sign that the metagame that exists is not a good place for the starter Pokemon to thrive, and were the metagame different (how different you want to say I'll leave up to you) they might be better and shine forth as being utterly amazing? And, while we're on the topic, how do you think Generation 6 is going to change all this? Will Blaziken stay gone? Will Blastoise stay mediocre? Is Meganium destined forever to suck?

I'd love to hear your guys' input on all this!