No, no! You're not alone.
I simply love Sinnoh: Pokémon Pearl was my first Pokémon game (together with Mystery Dungeon Red Squad) and simply loved it.
I got it in English and back then I couldn't understand very well the storyline and the mechanics, not being a native speaker, and I remember having my Torterra at level 80 before hitting the League, while over team mates about 30! >_<
Also, I taught him Cut and Rock Smash but I didn't know that there were a Move Deleter into the game: in other words, I played the whole game with Razor Leaf and Earthquake which replaced some Rock type move (can't exactly remember) only! I was such a noob back then.
Two years later I got Pokémon Platinum (this time in Italian) and I found it fantastic; wonderful storyline and characters, I loved Cyrus and the
hardest Champion of all time™ Cynthia, who took me forever to beat.
I'm still found of my in-game team: Infernape, Staraptor, Vaporeon, Roserade, Luxray and Giratina; I'm not interested in battling and this party was perfect for a normal, storyline run.
I really liked the cartoon series based on DPPt. Really cool!