I have recently been reading through past threads which centre around this current issue; however one thing I cannot comprehend is why such a crucial factor in decision making back then is some sort of a “huge joke of an argument” now.
What changed in 5th gen that made the highly regarded argument of ‘overcentralization’ all of a sudden invalid?
Where we less informed on what truly made a Metagame less balanced back then or did something new over right our previous judgement?
There's nothing wrong with the concept of banning to prevent centralization. It's just that we aren't at that point.
how much does Pokemon ‘X’ restrict the process of team building?
This is a valid consideration. If you need to run 2 dedicated counters for something, then yes it's a problem. But simply being unable to run three Fire types without Sun to get rid of Rain is not a big enough restriction to deserve banning anything. There's always the restriction that you can't run a crappy team. That means preparing for the top threats and not using outclassed Pokemon.
If Pokemon ‘X’ was banned how many Pokemon would rise up from the ashes of disparity?
This is not a valid consideration. Banning stuff simply because we think banning it will make the metagame better isn't what we should be doing. If banning Ferrothorn makes 10 Pokemon viable, should we ban it? If banning Stealth Rock makes 20 Pokemon viable, should we ban it? Ice Beam? Magnezone?
Before you know it, we're left with a metagame that looks like NU's nerfed cousin.
Now, I realize that the slippery slope scenario probably won't occur, but the idea of banning things to make the metagame better is harmful when applied casually. It should only be applied as a last resort to something that has taken over to a disgusting degree. A metagame where nothing has broken 22% use doesn't have that problem.
In this hypothetical scenario, the suspect test revealed that Kyogre was too over powered without the existent of Rayquaza. If such an event where to occur, and both ‘X’ and ‘Y’ where broken in their own right, would both be kept in OU because they balance each other out or would they be banished to Uber? Indeed a difficult question to answer...
A powerful Pokemon in an unforgiving metagame shouldn't be banned. If Kyogre, Rayquaza, and Groudon were all countered by Ferrothorn to the point where they didn't see the usage to remain OU, then they should not be banned even if they're crazy overpowered in a vacuum.
If we were looking at three completely broken Pokemon where everybody had to use at least one of the three and they reduced the game to Rock-Paper-Scissors, than yes there would be a problem. As much as the antiweathers would like to claim that's what we have right now, our current metagame does not look like that.
Since we're needlessly beating around the bush here, I'll talk about the current metagame. The weather inducers we have are hardly broken, even in the proper weather. This is the fundamental difference between the OU inducers and the Uber ones. Not only are all the weather inducers counterable, for the most part they are quite easy to defeat. The only issue is how powerful weather itself is. In that case, the fact that the weathers counter each other is just fine. If your team is weak to weather, you'll need to run something to change the weather yourself. That's not much different from needing Rapid Spin if your team is Stealth Rock weak.
Side Note: Once again I’m not asking you, what should or shouldn’t be banned. I want to know what you personally strive for in a Metagame, and to what point does Pokemon ‘X’ impact the Metagame to the extent that it should be banned?
-Don't ban things that we want banned, only ban things that absolutely need to be banned in order for the metagame to not be focused around a single Pokemon or strategy ("weather" is not a strategy).
-Don't ban based on theorymon, since theorymon is biased and shortsighted (and sometimes flatly wrong). Don't ban based on high usage alone. Extremely high usage is indicative of a problem that needs to be addressed, though.
-Don't ban things we choose not to counter, only ban things that can't be reasonably countered.
Unless something concrete (meaning not something as vague as "weather") is completely taking over the metagame to the point where the only other thing that sees play is its counters, nothing should be banned. If something doesn't even see play on 1 in 5 teams, chances are it's not actually as broken as theorymon would lead you to believe.
Lastly, would creating a suspect ladder be beneficial in the process of banning - as it would allow us to obtain fundamental ‘proof’?
No. It really wouldn't give us "proof" of anything unless we let it run until the metagame stabilized (which means we'd probably need to run it for at least two months before getting usable, post-stabilization numbers). And even then, it's often not a case of which metagame is better, but which one people like more (which are certainly not the same concept).
Moreover, a Suspect Ladder starts off with the premise that something should be banned and then sees how bad the fall out would be. That's not how we should be banning things. We should only be banning stuff that absolutely cannot remain in the metagame. If we are so unsure that something needs to be banned that a Suspect Ladder is necessary or desirable, then it is a good sign that it should not be banned.