"Pronounced like" in this context really means "vaguely similar, but actually fundamentally different". There is no English equivalent to the phonemes represented in pinyin by j, q, x, zh, ch, sh, r or z. English simply doesn't have alveolo-palatal or retroflex consonants. If anything, I think that pinyin is less misleading than Wade-Giles, because it doesn't lull you into false confidence. I have a weak preference for bopomofo, but that's another argument entirely.

I think you're right about highlighting the quality of the consonants when it comes to official mandarin, but those characteristics fade when it comes to regional variants.

Yo be clear, mandarin is of the most concern, just want to raise the issue that while true, it's not uniform throughout the language.

It's a fair point, but a pretty niche one - I expect that the overwhelming majority of foreign-language pinyin users are learning standard Mandarin. If you're learning Min or Wu as a second language, you've got bigger problems than the quirks of your transliteration scheme.

For native users of pinyin, the consistency with English pronunciation is essentially irrelevant.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear and also for belaboring the point. I wasn't referring to separate dialects, but local non northern mandarin which gets pronounced slightly differently than received pronunciation.

A brief example, yes/is, approx [shi], might be pronounced approx [si], etc. But it's mandarin and not hakka, min, etc.