@the badge race: I don't think Cain ever got the chance to challenge Radomus. Fern's badges have been out of order for a while. He did the first 3 in order, then after Shelly he challenged Aya. He could have been lying about beating Radomus, or maybe beat him with an underleveled team. It's possible that Gym Leaders adjust their team to match the levels of the challenger they're fighting, but then why was each badge level cap number chosen for each Gym Leader?
@level caps: For the Gym Leaders, I imagine they have their own badge on them. Team Meteor could have some kind of obedience machine, or they could disguise themselves as normal people when challenging Gyms. Or steal badges. Or maybe their Pokemon are disobedient and we just don't see it on-screen. Also it's not physically impossible to continue leveling past the level cap. They don't disobey 100% of the time.
I just find it weird in general that these small pieces of metal effect obedience. So, did Pokemon past level 20 just not obey at all before the Pokemon League was established? What about these badges makes the Pokemon obey?
@Route 1: I actually really like the area and the Aventurine Woods. The puzzle wasn't so bad once I figured out Bouffalant can remove logs. Route 2's puzzle, on the other hand...
@Cal/Titania: I thought it was said Cal got mad at Shelly and hit her. For Titania and Florinia, since the game is based off Showdown events, I imagine some kind of drama that happened there, but it seems intentionally ambiguous in-game.
@Meteor Duos: I noticed a lot of them use the Roggenrola and Aron lines too.
Female Meowstic having male Meowstic moves is an Essentials issue. It doesn't support different learnsets for different genders.