For most amateur Trainers, held items were hardly something they needed to consider.
After all, Pokémon battles involved a little too much complexity.
Even excluding the Legendary Pokémon they would almost never encounter, there were still nearly a thousand species of Pokémon, not to mention over a thousand bizarre and varied moves.
Having a basic understanding of the Pokémon native to their region and knowing how to raise them already made someone a competent, even excellent Trainer.
On top of that, mastering battles required factoring in extras such as Abilities and move development.
Only those who could bring all these factors together and develop their own unique understanding qualified as veteran Trainers.
As for held items...
Although the craftspeople of the Pokémon world had made all sorts of strange things by hand, most of which were not particularly expensive, few people could really put them to use.
The reason was simple-
These things demanded a comprehensive understanding of Pokémon from the Trainer, and even required careful planning around the opponent to produce decent results.
Many people simply lacked that ability, so they generally took the easy route and slapped on a Berry, or used something that required little thought, such as a Choice item or a Focus Sash.
As a result, most Trainers did not focus on items, instead concentrating on honing their Pokémon's own strength.
There was nothing wrong with that, of course. There was more than one path to getting stronger, and sufficiently high stats could naturally bulldoze through any strategy.
But when the Weakness Policy Qingyu had carefully prepared for Cynthia produced astonishing results, countless Trainers watching the livestream finally saw the light-
Using items properly could feel this good?
Thanks to a concealed Weakness Policy, Kommo-o, who had clearly been a cut below Baxcalibur at the