Kotone's quite nice. Definitely an improvement on Dawn, I think, as far as female characters go. I like her because she seems to have the same color pattern as Leaf: red and white hat, blue and red outfit, and they're both brunettes. You should use Lance at some point, though, yes. Then we could be a duo of reverse avatars.
He was pretty heroic in the anime, and I do like that they mentioned his Elite Four status. I'm not a fan of how they drew him, though--his FRLG outfit is my least favorite, and his hair was so waxy it looked like it was made out of a jolly rancher or something. Blech. I much prefer the shading in HG/SS.
His line in the original is my favorite: "Dragons are mythical Pokemon. They're hard to catch and raise, but their powers are superior!"
Dragons, Leaf, and Lance are my favorite things about Pokemon--and I've just begun writing a story featuring at least the first two. I can link you, should you be interested.
Yeah, it was pretty fun. It's also interesting when all the trainers are like "whoa, what are you?!" when you beat them, because it fits Lance so well. By far my favorite moment, though, was when Silver stripped my disguised character to reveal--LANCE! It was brilliant.