Well, you didn't play the same XY that I am playing, then.
To each their own, I personally consider it the weakest of the mainline games.
Kanto lets you do GYMs 3–7 in any order while still having great level curve, though.
Ignoring potential glitches, you need to fight Koga to use Surf before you can fight Blaine as that's the only way to reach Cinnabar, so Gym 7 always has to come after him (and if you go through the Seaform Islands, you need to beat Eirika for Strength). Additionally, the way the levels work in Kanto nudges you on a certain path far more as Surge is decently lower than Eirika, and she's about eight levels lower than Koga and Sabrina, so the only ones that you can really fight in any order are the latter two as otherwise the leveling curve gets skewed either in or out of your favor. Chuck, Jasmine, and Pryce are much closer to each other than those four so you don't get punished nearly as much for going off to beat Pryce before you beat Chuck.
That is a double-edged sword since it leads to the leveling curve problem in Johto, but it makes beating those Gyms in any order more inviting as an option.