It seems like the current meta is to make AI trainers have pets with impossible stats (Health, Damage, Speed). And while more damage or hp is always good, speed is such stat that it’s either good enough or not enough. Being unable to outspeed enemy pets (unless devs specifically WANT you to outspeed them) kills a lot of pets that rely on acting first (evasion pets, extra attack when acting first, combo attacks) so the (not so big) pool of viable pets gets even smaller because, unable to outspeed most enemies, you just pick those that can survive the hit and hit back.
Well, if Ikky wouldn’t have so much speed i couldn’t use black claw before Flock and due to his low hp he would be pretty useless. Now i’m pretty sure i will hit first so Black Claw, i’m getting hit (most likely 50% of his hp), flock to another debuff and he dies. I’ve got dead pet and enemy greatly debuffed. Couldn’t do that if enemy would attack first.
It was always been like this. In fact, it’s not as bad as it was originally, in Pandaria, where all of the tamers had all Epic pets, with the appropriate multipliers.
It’s actually a hard problem, designing pets for battles that are designed to be beatable in many ways, but still need careful play.
Of course, these days, most people just look up and copy strats from Xu-Fu’s, or Wowhead, or wherever, so they’re not even aware of the issue.
Decayin, I think you’d be interested in a Foulfeather. It’s got 309 speed, so it can stay faster against certain bosses, while remaining not too fast for a flyer.
There was a comment made a couple of years ago so I can’t fully recall it but it was about a similar concern – there is not much difference between being 2 points faster and being 20 faster, unless speed buffs and debuffs are involved. I could see an ability which casts from a difference, but in 2.0 maybe 
When it comes to PvP people often say “speed this, speed that” and when you go into queue the breeds are often faster even when the abilities do not demand it. It makes sense because one doesn’t want the opponent to gain advantage from them being first. Even in slower metas the speed is important as it makes swapping and returning pets much easier. This doesn’t mean, however, that the fastest pets ever are the best, as the resulting deficencies in other stats exist for a reason. (Although I can imagine certain abilities could have been intimidating on fast pets no matter what.) Priority moves also exist which are supposed to ignore the status quo, though their implementation is a bit faulty.
I’ve noticed that while doing ‘beat 15 trainers with all families’ and pet dungeons. Pet dungeons especially, since (unlike celestial tournament) they test not just having specific pets, but also an overall power of your roster. So, in doing this content I noticed that, despite having over 700 unique pets, most of them are, in fact, not so good for any of this content. Some families already feel lackluster (looking at you, Critters and Beasts), but with the speed issues and unrealistic health/damage values of enemies you could count the useful pets of some families by the fingers of one hand of a blind butcher.
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I don’t agree that dungeons test the power of your roster more than the CT does. Rather, each of the dungeons tends to advantage certain kinds of pets - Rabbits Rule in Stratholme, for example - and if your roster is weak in certain areas, well, that’s a good reason to do some work on it!
You have 608 unique pets, of which only 117 are at level 25, and you don’t have the best breed for a lot of those:
When you have grown and levelled and shaped your roster’s breeds, you may see it differently. I actually envy you. I wish I had that journey still ahead of me (though it was painful at first!)
There certainly are a lot of effective duplicate pets, especially among wild species - many, many rabbits, snakes, frogs - but it’s up to you to choose the breeds that will give you the coverage you want for each moveset. So, for example, everyone wants at least an S/S Leopard Tree Frog, and a P/P Yellow Bullfrog, but after that you can choose the variants of Health and Power, and the Speed points, that you will find most useful.
As for families, Critters have Rabbits and Fawns, and quite a few specialists, but I agree generally have the weakness of a lack of big hitters[*] (well, they are … critters 
) but I have no idea where you’re coming from talking about Beasts in that context. Beasts have a wonderful variety! I would say that Magic is probably my candidate for the overall weakest family.
everyone wants at least an S/S Leopard Tree Frog, and a P/P Yellow Bullfrog
That’s not true. These frogs aren’t mandatory or irreplaceable for any PVE pet battle, so their breeds and/or rarity are totally irrelevant. Yellow-Bellied Bullfrog isn’t even needed for Pandaria Safari achievement.
I don’t think any pet is either mandatory or ireplaceable in either PvE or PvP. In fact, as I’ve said before, I think you could get through all achievements except the Family ones in PvE and PvP with just 50 species. Much less breeds.
In fact, DragonsAfterDark, the most prolific strat-setter ever on Xu-Fu’s, just said she doesn’t have a P/P Nexus, and is in no rush to get one.
But when you have 1200 pets, with about 600 to choose breeds for, with 20+ otherwise identical frogs and snails and moths, why wouldn’t you give yourself as many options as you can?
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