An opinion you're probably all alone with?

[Lord Raziere]

Frankly, I don't think they do. Certainly people have frequently been baffled by decisions they make with Smash Brothers in balance patches and the like, and they've never displayed more than a passing willingness to even acknowledge the competitive scenes of Smash games - getting them to even allow the games to be played at big tournaments like Evo has been a challenge at times.

Indeed. Nintendo is one of the most casual-focused companies there is. they hate the idea of nuzlockes, they design pokemon to be easy intentionally, and Smash Bros is meant to be a party game. competitive stuff for all this isn't really their focus or concern.

its just that they get so many people, they can't stop people from playing however they want, and eventually people are going to go for world records and competition and whatnot because they find it fun. it is simply in humanity's nature to experiment as well as to compare and to compete simply because they want to compete.

the whole IV/EV thing? not supposed to be optimized. they're supposed to give your pokemon personality and unique strengths and weaknesses. but when you put numbers and effectiveness impacts on that kind of thing, you inevitably just get people optimizing it to get the best they can.