Yes, that's exactly why it took me so long to accept Gen V in general. They were kinda trying to do this "reset" of the franchise, by attempting to repeat the same formulas. Not only the videogames that had all these counterparts as you say, but even the anime giving Ash a lamer version of Misty and Brock as the gym leaders that accompany him (well, Iris wasn't technically a leader in the series, but still). They even released an atrocious attempt of PokéRap (that mentioned only like 50 Pokémon out of the 150+ they introduced). We didn't see older Pokémon in the anime besides Meowth and Pikachu for several seasons as well. The only good thing was the re-introduction of Who's That Pokémon? segment, and I did like a little how the Team Rocket became "serious" for a while.
I don't think the whole counterparts thing was done as a "reset" but done because of the fact that you couldn't use any of the old Pokémon until the post game. So it was mostly to communicate to veteran players what they can expect from certain Pokémon. Also, I'm pretty sure a few of the "counterparts" weren't even made with Gen 1 in mind, Throh, for example, was originally supposed to be in Sinnoh, but was put in Unova with Sawk created as a counterpart to it. Musharna's creator, Atsuko Nishida (also creator of Pikachu), was allowed to create anything and came up with Musharna as a tapir with dreams coming out of it's head, so even though it's similar to Drowzee as a tapir related to dreams, I'm guessing it was just a coincidence. Honestly though, I never got any of the "redundancy" complaints, like, as much as people like to point at the Timburr line being similar to the Machop line, they're still different enough in my eyes, one are construction workers, the other are body builders/wrestlers. I personally don't get the idea that just because it was done before means it can't be done again a little differently, like I don't see anything wrong with Yamper, Impidimp, or Alcremie just because we already have an Electric dog (Electrike), a goblin-like creature (Sableye) and a cake (Slurpuff). Although I will admit that I generally like it when Pokémon look good together, so when some Pokémon share a theme or some similarities, I really appreciate it.
Also, up to Gen 5, every generation got a "Pokérap" except Gen 4. Both Johto and Hoenn have one:
And Unova got two, you already mention one, here is the other with all the Pokémon, but it's Japanese only: