Well first of all, having monsters based on gears is not exactly a new idea, and certainly not Digimon's. And you only gave one example. Are gears really stupider than a floating ball with magnets attatched to it? Are they really stupider than
this monstrosity?
Let's take a look at some first-gen Pokemon.
Muk and Grimer: they are piles of sludge.
Voltorb and Electrode: they're red and white balls. That are electric for some reason.
Exeggcute: it's a bunch of fucking eggs. That hatch from an egg, no less.
Koffing and Weezing: your mileage may vary, but come on, what the fuck are those things?
And that's just the first generation that we all know and love. I'm not going to bother going through the other 343 Pokemon, but they just get sillier from there. Does any of this mean Gen V doesn't have silly-looking Pokemon?
Of course not. But at least it doesn't have
ridiculous,
unnecessary evolutions of existing Pokemon.