As much as I'd love for my friends to be friends with me forever, it doesn't mean we might stay friends for the rest of our lives. Although, I like to think that we'll at least be friends for awhile since we've all died at least once for one reason or another! [Usually the friends you die and come back with are keepers, right?]

That seems like a dumb way to go about it. Unless they can figure out mutations, Pokemon seem to follow certain paths. But just evolving Pokemon probably wouldn't cause a mutation. Mutations are usually something that are acquired to help with survival. What use is there to just randomly evolve them? Other than to speed up the process. But that sounds like it would make Pokemon weaker because they didn't get the adequate training in the first place.