Ok, sorry, Gen 5 tried to reinvent the games. Tried to be a kind of soft reset. Didn't work. Love the games, to be fair, but it didn't work. And a lot of the nice new features (challenge mode, seasons, achievements) never saw the light of day again.
That said, a lot of the other nice features (the ones that added more to what existed: hidden abilities and double grass in particular) are actually really nice. The new battle styles are gimmicky, though :/
You can't get anymore connected to the old pokemon by going back to them and give them new things. And that's what Mega Evolutions and to a lesser extent Z-Crystals did. And Mega Evolutions were no different than regular evolutions.
Ok, it's connected to the old pokemon, but it's not really connected to the old games that much. As I say, it feels like a tacked on feature, especially since they didn't do anything more with them in Gen 7.
And they absolutely are different to regular evolutions. They're temporary, in battle only, and can only be done once per battle. Mega evolved pokemon have different stats, but not different movesets. It's not really the same. At all.
Problem with Alolan forms to me is that, while they're based on existing pokemon, with a couple exceptions they might as well not be. Alolan Vulpix and Ninetales, Ratatta and Raticate, Meowth and Persian. Might as well have been new ones. Again, I don't dislike these (I love Vulpix/Ninetales, and I used Grimer/Muk on my team), but it'd be nice to have more regular evolutions.
I guess if there's some way to evolve into Alolan Marowak, Exeggutor, and Raichu in Galar, then it won't be so bad, but as it is, they just feel like new mechanics rather than improved mechanics.
(Although I would like to see some Galar variants as well. Of all 7 generations. Though please not too much Kanto.)
Anyway, my point is, the (current) favourite generations, as I understand it, are 2, 3, and maybe 4. And none of them tacked anything on. Gen II was mostly quality-of-life, plus maybe time, plus a bunch of new pokemon. Gen III had double battles, I guess, and contests? Gen 4 did the physical/special split across moves rather than types. None of these are big innovations, they're improvements on the systems that already existed. And, frankly, if the new games introduce no new mechanics, but are solid (i.e. balanced, great story, great characters, whatever) pokemon games, then I'll be exceptionally pleased.
Oh, problem with not revealing typing on the pokedex when you catch a pokemon - you learn the typing when you're using it. Or, I suppose, you could not learn it when you're using it, but then you might do something stupid like send out Scorbunny's full evolution against a Hippowdon (assuming it turns out electric and not, like, flying).
Just pointing it out~
Although the idea isn't too bad. I've long thought that the Pokédex gaining full knowledge of stuff by shoving it in a ball for a second is a weird thing. Maybe every time you catch one or fight one or while you use it in battle, it just reads more and more data? I dunno, but there's something there. Which GF will probably never do