Hey, there, anon! We really appreciate the suggestion, and it's a good concern that you've pointed out! However, we have to disagree for a number of reasons.
For starters, altering the current badge system would actually make for considerably more work on our end, for reasons you articulated pretty well yourself. Rather than having a standardized and predictable system with which to implement the Gym Leader half of badge challenges, our badgemod would have to change the gym leader's lineup from player to player for every single battle, on top of potentially articulating a detailed result if the player requested one. Not only would that make for a fair amount of extra work on badgemod's part, but it would also run the risk of making badge acceptances come out slower than they could otherwise because of all the customization involved.
As another point, the system you describe would also mean that badgemod would have to check every requester's badge history and progress on top of their fielded team's levels before they could even begin addressing the match itself, because again, they would have to put in that extra legwork to tailor each badge request to the individual requester's circumstances — which, while perhaps more engaging on an individual level, again runs the risk of making the process as a whole slower and less efficient to maintain.
The replay value aspect also runs this risk, as you note yourself — again, offering different TMs based on those criteria would involve creating a list of possible TMs, setting up a system for which TMs would be handed out under what criteria, requiring every player to maintain in an easily-accessible location their existing TMs, and still demanding a fair amount of extra research for every challenge, which brings about the same concerns already stated.
Finally, on a less technical note, while we understand the need for a challenging experience for skilled Pokemon enthusiasts, we must also take into consideration the fact that our players fall into a spectrum of Pokemon knowledge, and that it's our job as mods to make sure that the systems we use are reasonably accessible to everyone regardless of their knowledge of (or really, interest in) Pokemon battling. We have to aim to accommodate the most people possible, which frequently means some level of inconvenience to the outliers: people with absolutely no Pokemon knowledge whatsoever have to pick up at least some basics to participate, and our Pokemon experts must sometimes contend with a system designed to be simplistic for maximum accessibility.
However, that's not to say that Gym battles have to be an off-screen and uninteresting thing. On the contrary, we highly encourage players to take creative liberties with their gym battles, and aim to be flexible when players present us with deviations from the norm in an individual capacity. In the past, we've had characters earn their badges by challenging gym leaders to competitions that have nothing to do with Pokemon battling; we've had characters request battle royales instead of one-on-one matches; we've had characters present us with badge requests composed entirely in verse. We're more than happy to make the effort to accommodate players in the ideas they bring to us individually, and encourage players to be as creative in their gameplay as they like. However, it is because of that individualized flexibility that we feel it is unnecessary to change the existing badge rules at this time. As things stand right now, people who would like a more complicated experience are welcome to ask us for one, and we will seek to accommodate them; people uninterested in a complicated badge experience are not compelled to participate in one, and can go about their business as they see fit. And given our shaky history with being slow and inefficient on responding to our players, you can see why we would want our priority to be a smooth and efficient system over a complex and potentially slow one.
But again, we thank you for the suggestion and we definitely like to hear this sort of feedback, even if we can't always implement the ones we receive. Though the system you're suggesting may not be feasible for us at the moment, that doesn't mean it will be forever, or that we won't be able to find some alternative means of addressing the same underlying concerns at some point in the future.
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For starters, altering the current badge system would actually make for considerably more work on our end, for reasons you articulated pretty well yourself. Rather than having a standardized and predictable system with which to implement the Gym Leader half of badge challenges, our badgemod would have to change the gym leader's lineup from player to player for every single battle, on top of potentially articulating a detailed result if the player requested one. Not only would that make for a fair amount of extra work on badgemod's part, but it would also run the risk of making badge acceptances come out slower than they could otherwise because of all the customization involved.
As another point, the system you describe would also mean that badgemod would have to check every requester's badge history and progress on top of their fielded team's levels before they could even begin addressing the match itself, because again, they would have to put in that extra legwork to tailor each badge request to the individual requester's circumstances — which, while perhaps more engaging on an individual level, again runs the risk of making the process as a whole slower and less efficient to maintain.
The replay value aspect also runs this risk, as you note yourself — again, offering different TMs based on those criteria would involve creating a list of possible TMs, setting up a system for which TMs would be handed out under what criteria, requiring every player to maintain in an easily-accessible location their existing TMs, and still demanding a fair amount of extra research for every challenge, which brings about the same concerns already stated.
Finally, on a less technical note, while we understand the need for a challenging experience for skilled Pokemon enthusiasts, we must also take into consideration the fact that our players fall into a spectrum of Pokemon knowledge, and that it's our job as mods to make sure that the systems we use are reasonably accessible to everyone regardless of their knowledge of (or really, interest in) Pokemon battling. We have to aim to accommodate the most people possible, which frequently means some level of inconvenience to the outliers: people with absolutely no Pokemon knowledge whatsoever have to pick up at least some basics to participate, and our Pokemon experts must sometimes contend with a system designed to be simplistic for maximum accessibility.
However, that's not to say that Gym battles have to be an off-screen and uninteresting thing. On the contrary, we highly encourage players to take creative liberties with their gym battles, and aim to be flexible when players present us with deviations from the norm in an individual capacity. In the past, we've had characters earn their badges by challenging gym leaders to competitions that have nothing to do with Pokemon battling; we've had characters request battle royales instead of one-on-one matches; we've had characters present us with badge requests composed entirely in verse. We're more than happy to make the effort to accommodate players in the ideas they bring to us individually, and encourage players to be as creative in their gameplay as they like. However, it is because of that individualized flexibility that we feel it is unnecessary to change the existing badge rules at this time. As things stand right now, people who would like a more complicated experience are welcome to ask us for one, and we will seek to accommodate them; people uninterested in a complicated badge experience are not compelled to participate in one, and can go about their business as they see fit. And given our shaky history with being slow and inefficient on responding to our players, you can see why we would want our priority to be a smooth and efficient system over a complex and potentially slow one.
But again, we thank you for the suggestion and we definitely like to hear this sort of feedback, even if we can't always implement the ones we receive. Though the system you're suggesting may not be feasible for us at the moment, that doesn't mean it will be forever, or that we won't be able to find some alternative means of addressing the same underlying concerns at some point in the future.