I'm impressed that you managed to watch this many episodes of the "new" dub without being tempted to pull a Van Gogh.
I remember feeling underwhelmed by the Brandon fight too. Ash didn't use any out-of-the-box thinking other than having Squirtle wash sand out of its eyes, and Pikachu pulling a OHKO at the end was really anticlimactic. All that build up, and all we really get is Ash yelling "I believe in you!" a whole bunch of times.
There's a fight near the end of Sinnoh with a lot of build up that delivers, in my opinion (easily my favorite fight in the entire series). Look forward to that. Only ~200 episodes to go!