To me the designs were always important on the starter pokémon, a good thing that starter pokémon have is that they are all so cute.
What i worry more about is if its going to be a strong pokémon and with high usage in the game or not, for that reason i choose the grass starter 80% of the time, because im always very skeptical about the result of a fire or water starter, i always saw people reactions to grass types as natural, while most other types they have lots of things to say, when it comes to pokémon battling perhaps its underrated compared to other types, while fire or a water could have much bigger problems.