If I cared about story line, you would play a actual JRPG, would you?
Anyways, Generation IV is a big improvement over the last since it's a lot easier to Effort Value train and also the Physical/Special move split also benefited most. Most people who are casual players wouldn't care much about the competitive aspects, but I do and end up spending hours breeding the best Pokemon with the best moves sets and Effort Value spreads and spend countless hours battling at the Battle Tower and now the Battle Frontier. I would care less if Pokemon had a good story line or not... I'll let other JRPGs focus on that instead.
