What I was trying to say is that nowadays, it is easy to us "burn" Ash, say that we don't want him in the anime anymore, because Ash's figure was ruined along the years, we saw him lose leagues in the most incomprehensible ways, we saw him make many silly things, and everything contributed to make Ash doesn't seem as relevant to us as he used to be. So, it is a easy question to most of us today.
But, let's go back and ask this question right after the end of the indigo league. There is a big chance of changing the answer.
Let's take Digimon as an example. I don't know how are the Digimon fans in your countries, guys, but here in Brazil, even the people who actually enjoyed the second, third, fourth (...), generations of the Digimon anime, used to say "Oh, the 'x' generation is really great, but it isn't as good as the first generation is", and then, Digimon Tri (is this the name?) came out, and all the Digimon fans got crazy, because what? Because the first characters were back and the first are better... Because of human affective memory, these characters, of the first generation, bring back good memories, not only from Digimon but from their (Digimon fans) lives. So, we can understand the reason of all this love for the first generation.
But, Ash, he didn't get this "affective memory", because he "grew up with us". We don't miss him. Maybe the character who gets this kind of "treatment" was Misty, who many people love deliberately... But when you look attentively to her character, you see some similarities between her and Iris... The most hated "Poké-Girl". So why is Misty loved and Iris hated? Affective memory, Misty bring us good memories of our childhood with Pokémon, while Iris, bring us bad memories of the Best Wishes generation, which many of you disliked. And this probably is one of the reasons why I actually like Iris, because was the Best Wishes generations which makes me rediscover Pokémon.
After all this speech, I think I got completely out of the context, but I hope you can now understand what I'm trying to say.
Regards.