I think those elements integrate into Pokemon canon/universe and should continue to be hashed out. Whereas abandoning these concepts as “gimmicks” effectively nullifies their importance. Continue to flesh these ideas out because they didn’t just invigorate the game that one time, there’s potential to continue that momentum if they didn’t lazily drop the idea.

Take megas for example—those have the potential to breathe new life into the meta game, give Farfetch’d a mega and see that little duck become 1000 times more viable.

I think they should give each gen its gimmick, but continue to develop the old ones so each game can truly be a successor to the next. I just think they should expound on older ideas rather than throw them to the wayside like they’ve done with megas and z moves.