Whilst I'm sure that PokeLab is a lot smoother and more efficient than Shoddy, Shoddy allowed the use of alts. PokeLab forces the user to use their Smogon Forum account, and as per the rules on these forums, the use of alts are prohibited. Am I missing something, or can you not use any kind of alternate account on PokeLab? Personally, I would rather ladder and test teams under an alternate account. This is deliberate, but what is the problem with having alts on there? For testing purposes, I think alts are probably necessary.
This sole "issue" is probably one the reasons why people may choose Pokemon-Online over PokeLab. Would this be different for the other sites/groups when they're able to host their own servers on PokeLab? Or will it force uses to log in with their Smogon account?
This is definately a positive step from Shoddy, but it has taken too long for public release seeing as Pokemon-Online has already established itself properly. Only time will tell I guess to see if this becomes increasingly more popular than Pokemon-Online. Also I'm looking forward to the eventuality of the inclusion of the Gen 5 pokemon and metagame :3. A definate thanks and appreciation is in order to all those who have put in their time and effort into creating and programming PokeLab; there's a lot of hard work needed to code it, so well done PokeLab team!