Y'know what it's like, you're about to kill some dude's whole team, suddenly a clefable with a toxic orb gets a lucky critical with facade and ruins everything (YES AQUA I AM IN FACT LOOKING AT YOU RIGHT NOW).
Yeah I guess...I still hate you EV training, my motto in pokemon is to win with sheer guts and attacks no buffs, de buffs, Counter, and Mirror Coat and to never give the opponet a momment of mercy.
I kind of miss the simplicity of the original G/S/C where you could pick up a poke and start training it from the get-gp. Now you've got to spend hours hatching eggs until the one with the right nature shows up. Made even more tedious when said poke has 2 natures, which pretty much doubles your waiting time. EV training itself isn't a long process; stock up on vitamins for the first 100 points, then battle to get the rest. Those Power items help a ton as well.
Also, as far as the Gyarados/Feraligatr debate goes, I think you should just use whichever poke you want. Even if Gyarados is statistically better, you can still find ways to make Feraligatr do awesome stuff as well.