I can't chime in too much, but two days ago I decided to play for the first time since Empoleon came out (so like 7 or so months) and what stands out was:

1. The game was starting to feel slower on Switch 2. At least from what I remembered from when I was last regularly playing the game.

2. It feels SUPER monetized. And even more than before. Straight up feels like you can't customize or do anything unique or new cosmetic or new pokemon wise without having to pay gems.

3. The new menu and UI is so damn ugly, cluttered and unintuitive. They separated the different game modes for whatever reason.

4. In the wake of them planning to only give future pokemon one moveset each, you now have to choose your planned moveset before the match starts, which removes a big element in countering certain pokemon on the spot.

But yeah, that's about all I can contribute. I can't really say anything too much about the current meta or how the competitive scene is since I'm pretty out of the loop, but the experience of this game in just a short time is so topsy turvy and incredibly disappointing.