It's not so much that I want the game to be outright hard, just challenging enough that I don't get bored on my first playthrough. Make me use at leaat 2% of my brain power and reward me for actually using status moves.
I think these games could probably afford to be a little tougher then usual, since you could always just go around an obstacle or use auto battle. But I also understand the folks at Gamefreak might have other ideas.
Difficulty doesn't bother me that much as compared to Game Freak acting dumb. It really bummed me out when went back to Black 2 for the first time since it came out last year and found out I don't get to keep Hard Mode when I start a new game.
It still blows my mind of how dumb of a game design decision it was. Beat Normal to unlock Easy. You can unlock Hard mode, but it doesn't carry over to new playthroughs. Also you have to have a friend who's already beaten the version of the specific game that unlocks the feature to unlock it in yours without beating the entire game already.
While not a substitute for a proper mode, I think USUM had a decent approach with certain battles featuring Pokemon with extra buffs. Given SV appears to be more open world than any other previous game, I'm cautiously optimistic we'll be able to see some challenge or at least some difficulty spikes. The Path of Legends story already sounds like it'll be borrowing from Gen 7's Totem Pokemon.