I'd totally understand why this idea wouldn't be "ok" with making mandatory, but since we have gym leaders and the elite 4 and the champion, I was thinking how in every game there's a rival.
Rivals always challenge you at random sometimes inconvenient times and ALWAYS at the end of victory road, which you have to go through to get to the elite 4.
I was just thinking because so many people seem to want to be Gym leaders (and there can only be so many gym leaders) there should be a group of people as rivals (just as many as the gym leaders or something so your more likely to run into at least one)
and you can challenge them at any point (or they challenge you ) and when you beat them you get a button or something that says you passed Victory Road (or at least symbolizes it) (any point since waiting until after you get 8 badges might be troublesome and rivals do challenge you at many points)
It would give people who wanted to be gym leaders a chance to do something similar and would add an extra fun challenge.
Like I said I get if this would be too much trouble to add as mandatory, but maybe even just a few rivals you can face (or even the rivals have to technically challenge you) and have it optional, and then you can go around saying "I passed victory road" or just have the ability to have a rival who might just constantly "bother" you xD
Regardless of what happens, next year at Pax East I'll probably have a few friends acting as rivals, doing that to people while they wait or just people they notice who have badges just for fun. After all I'll be returning again as Silver with Silver's party so it would be fun.
Sorry if I repeated myself in this, I tend to do that