Pokémon X and Pokémon Y

At first I kinda agreed that pokemon like Absol, Mawile and Pinsir could have just gotten evolutions to boost their power, but then again, I think having standalone pokemon helps with the diversity a bit. I like some standalone pokemon. standalones usually have more of a "finished" look, and they are not going to change design wise through evolution.

I'm one of those people who loved Magmar in Gen 1, and I thought Magby was an unnecessary addition, and then came Magmortar who is ugly as sin.

I think adding more evolutionary families is just going to bloat the pokedex even more, and have pokedex numbers all over the place. Again i'll use Magmar as an example, who starts off at Pokedex Number 240 as Magby, moves DOWN to 126 as Magmar and then all the way up to 467 with Magmortar.

I think Mega-evolutions are a brilliant compromise to both of these problems by making standalone pokemon more powerful without changing their design too drastically, or messing up the pokedex.