Actually, I think Pokémon would be closer to having a talking robot cat than Digimon is. But while I might not be horribly impressed by Chako, she's far from ruining the series for me.

I don't mind character types as long as they don't get too predictable - it's okay if I know which one will be saving the world in episode 51 as long as they surprise on the way there. And I certainly won't demand anything with too elaborate plots right now, as I'm currently trying to figure out whether I like Digimon Savers being so compactly written or not.