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Ash's Pikachu stopped using Volt Tackle like 10 years ago and it still bothers me

AKA my take on why I think the 4-move limit is garbage

Firstly, to address the Donphan in the room, I have no quarrels with the 4-move limit in-game. It makes sense with the mechanics and, esp with recent games removing the necessity of the Move Re-learner, no complaints there.

I'm mostly taking about the anime.

In my mind, the number and variety of moves a Pokemon knows should be at least semi-correlated to their age and level of training. I don't expect a newly hatched Charmander to be slinging around Fire Blasts. And honestly, I'd expect truly juvenile Pokemon to not even have "moves" at all. Instead, based on innate wild behaviors, they have maybe growl and then the generic attack motion from PMD that can't even be referred to as "Tackle" or "Pound" yet. As they get older and grow from their potato phase - ignoring how most Pokemon who hatched on-screen in the anime as a fully-grown first-evolution size - into leggy juveniles, they can start developing "moves" of their own.

Take Ponyta as an example, maybe a benchmark growth marker is when they are stable enough on their legs and have gained enough weight that they can actually use Tackle or Stomp confidently without tipping over. Or when Pokemon like Poochyena's teeth have grown in enough that they could actually perform the actions of Bite. Even Pikachu only had Thunder shock when he and Ash started traveling together. He didn't even learn Quick Attack/Agility (Gen 1 really treated them as the same thing) until the pair was actively training to face Lt. Surge and Raichu for the second time. Raichu is also an example of how evolution can cause you to skip moves, as Lt. Surge's Raichu was evolved to quickly via Thunderstone and missed learning moves as a Pikachu, instead filling its moveset with O'KO power moves.

Going along with this, I think that Pokemon that have more specialized training are able to retain more moves. Drawing from the idea of "Use it or lose it," I feel like captive Pokemon that battle more often are better at retaining their moves as well as their execution being more polished vs a wild or retired Pokemon who only pulls out a specialty moves one or twice a month. This also compliments the quip from the first Pokemon episode where the Pokedex remarks that "Wild Pokemon tend to be jealous of human-trained Pokemon," which could be due to the trained Pokemon being more adept at using multiple, high-powered moves. In the eyes of a wild Pokemon, assuming similar pressures of survival with wild animals, a stronger, more diverse moveset would likely increase survival rates and ease of living. I'd expect Ash's Pikachu to have a more polished Iron Tail due to how often it's utilized in battle vs a wild pikachu. I feel like we've also heard that about trainers "training up" their Pokemon's moves to be stronger, thereby implying that they were less powerful when they started work. And with repetition and use, they're able to learn new moves.

In learning new moves, I have a theory of Move Evolution. New moves can either be trained up from scratch, like Ash's Pikachu learning Iron Tail in Hoenn, or they can result from a current move being strengthened to such an extent that the move evolves on its own, like the Charmander and Squirtle in the PMD anime special where their Ember and Bubble morphed into Flamethrower and Water Gun respectively. Returning to my main complaint, Pikachu's Volt Tackle originated from Quick Attack in a high-stress situation. However, with Move Evolution, it's all based on power and control originating from that individual Pokemon. This also implies that if Pokemon can turn the power all the way up to create a new move, then they can also dial it back to potentially revert to the move's prior form, with a few exceptions.

Pikachu learning Volt Tackle on the fly seems like a divergent path of Move evolution, as he was still easily able to parse out the difference between the two moves, and his use of Volt Tackle seemed to take more visible effort. But I don't think that's always true, especially with linear Move Evolutions, or leveling up moves. Taking the pair from the PMD example again, I feel that it'd be easier for Charmander to revert to Ember than Squirtle reverting to Bubble. In Charmander's case, his multiple sparks of flame morphed into the new Flamethrower move. So if he were to input less power, then I imagine he'd either revert to the Ember sparks, or at least get a smaller/thinner stream of fire. The phenomenon would probably translate to Pikachu as well, morphing between Thunderbolt and Thunder Shock. Squirtle, on the other hand, there's a change in energy shape as well as power, converting from just bits of water filled with air to a direct stream of water. So, if Squirtle were to lessen the power of his move, I think he'd just get a weaker trickle of water and he'd have to consciously choose to use Bubble in order to get bubbles to appear. However, this special debuted before the move Bubble Beam, which seems like a more natural progression of power. Or you could imagine there's a deviation in Move Evolution with the base move of Bubble acting as the cornerstone.

All of this rambling is leading to the theory I have that I don't think highly-trained Pokemon would naturally forget their moves. I think a lot of it would come down to a matter of skill and use of their moves. Definitely move prowess could be diminished or even extinct due to lack of use or other training methods, but I don't think that process is immediate or necessarily purposeful. I don't expect World Champion Ash's Pikachu to be slinging around Thunder shocks with the same ease as his signature Thunderbolt, but I don't believe that the potential for the use of Thunder shock is lost either. In order for Pikachu to keep showcasing the new moves the franchise was developing, I believe his moveset was cut, also to simplify the animation budget. However, if all those factors were negated, I believe that Pikachu would realistically still be using Volt Tackle along with his Champion moveset and that it shouldn't be an issue.

Anywho, that's my two-cents on the matter. If you made it this far, remember to hydrate yourselves