Go with the first set defninitly (Garbodor, Camerupt, Togekiss, Hunchkrow, Porygon, Gardevoir,), but instead of garbodor I think Skuntank, Seviper, or Scolipede would be much better ones to use out of the available poison types.
Ame, Could you do Mega Shinies? They could be much rarer and would be some random color you choose for each. Like a chartreuse green rapidash or a bright pink zoroark.
yanmega is really only useful in the game if you breed it for mild/rash nature and to have wing attack and ancient power for early evolution and then to help in level up until it gets bug buzz. (trust me from personal experience it was a real headache)
That would be a good reason to skip Numel. lol, Have you considered trying swoobat? Good speed and spatk, early game and gives you the extra flying coverage before you get charizard and then you just save raltz for gallade instead of gardevoir.
Level caps and other info:
http://www.pokemonreborn.com/game/rebornfaq.html
Ground type wise as a replacement for Excadrill, Camerupt is available early and is extremely useful (Numel event).
And I wouldn't worry about wasting experience. There is plenty opportunity in the game to level up and grind.
For a better flying: staraptor, HONCHKROW, and Togekiss are all available.
Plus Honchkrow has good enough special attack that shadow ball will be superbly effective so Drifblim can be replaced (although I do love drifblim.) Just my thoughts
There were animated sprites for episode 8 but they crashed some peoples games on computers that couldnt handle them so Ame didn't continue them and they are mothballed for the moment.
There are already luvdisc with heart scales and other obtainable heart scales in copious amounts.
yes, it happened 3 times out of 15pp of thunder fang and didnt happen for hidden power(ghost) or flame burst. And did not happen for any of the other five pokes on my team. It didn't just happen on lv29 unown, but that was the one i managed to catch a glimpse of the level it happened for.
Getting no experience after a battle was mentioned in another topic but I found a correlation that may help find out the problem:
When my manectric uses Thunder fang on unown (the one that i caught the level for was a lv 29 unown), randomly there is no experience given at the end of the battle. It's only happened with my manectric this time.
I haven't had this happen anywhere else in 9.5