Hm...though I am quite the fan of what you had to say, I don't quite agree. And the reason for this comes from looking at Pokemon's hacking community objectively. Not the hackers themselves, though, as for this I'll specifically refer to the players. I recently made the statement that the players eat hacks up like candy. Not to say that all hack players don't appreciate attention to detail or explore the game for the game, but ultimately most hack players play Pokemon hacks because they want more Pokemon. Plain and simple.
The story really isn't important, and thus making a silent protagonist isn't really much of a decision to the average hacker. After all, where the true thought process for the average hacker's story is is actually the opposite of the main games. A hacker generally shows their wit through the set-up, where as the main games are pretty standard regardless of the game and become their own unique adventure after the fact. This doesn't break formula, of course. You're still collecting 8 badges and defeating the big bad- and despite how trivial it might seem, making a protagonist that talks takes effort, and more, it would put more emphasis on character and story, which should not happen unless the game is about the characters and/or the story. This generally isn't a Pokemon practice save for in Generation V, but they remedied this by putting stronger emphasis on the personalities of those around you so that the story could continue to carry weight.
That's partially beside the point, but the reason I say all that is because I think most hackers and players do have a different enjoyment of the series than you do. The silent player is, for all intents and purposes, a mere link in the chain that makes up the formula. If you change it, people notice because it's different, it's non-standard, and if you follow the formula to that point and veer off like that, even if it's only one line, it can be jarring and will turn heads. If you don't change it, they don't care, because the masses play hacks for the features rather than the story. Fast forward is often their friend and the more Pokemon the game has the better. This isn't to say an interesting concept or nice looking maps are completely ignored- no, they're actually part of the popularity. Quality's a factor, of course, and a big one.
Thinking about this, I get a different impression; though I have only been a member of this community for (like) a week, so maybe my perceptions wil change with exposure. I think most hack players play Pokemon hacks for meta-reasons. Mainly, community. They play hacks because doing so makes them feel a part of this community and brings them closer to the people that populate it. I think that's a strong driving force. Sure, they enjoy Pokemon, and are excited and curious to see what can be done by small (or large) manipulations of the formula we know; they kind of have to have a baseline investment in the franchise to even want to be amember of this community. But, I think, if there was no message board, no conversation, just a page with a load of links to hacks, people would play a lot less.
I mean, when you really get down to it (and start making a lot of assumptions which may be projection) even creating and posting a hack is an exercise in identity. You're advertising yourself to the community and building your own confidence as an artist, craftsman, etc. The reasons you make things in the first place, similar to the reasons for consuming things, are the same combination of baseline investment in subject matter and desire to have a place in a community. So what we're talking about when we talk about 'gameplay' is the type of stuff that primarily pertains to the first part, the franchise investment.
Now, I don't know which of the two motivations is strongest, but what I'm trying to say is that I agree with you that gameplay is important to consumers, but I can't disassociate gameplay from story (in my definition of story, at least). From parts of your post it sounds like you draw a distinction between 'story' and 'gameplay', were gameplay includes things like choosing which Pokemon to use and how to raise them, and story is dialogue, and all the stuff like cutscenes which are (generally, barr dialogue options) out of the players control. To me, there are two stories told in every GF Pokemon game: the red-herring subplot about Team Rocket(etc), which is told through more traditional, movie-like means; and the primary coming of age plot about the player character, told through gameplay. In this sense, 'gameplay' and 'story' is a false dichotomy. And, to bring this back to how I started the paragraph, I think when you say consumers are more intersted in gameplay, what you actually mean is that consumers are more interested in the primary (coming-of-age) plot than the secondary evil team plot.
And, if consumers really are more intersted in this, I think a speaking protagonist even steps on their toes, because the writer pushing himself into the hero's head is the writer pushing the consumer out. Yeah, I think it pushes you out only temporarily, and only slightly, so it's easy to ignore/overcome as a player. If you're trying to be (either consciously, or otherwise) the hero character, it's only annoying, not gamebreaking, to have that character do something that you wouldn't. But stepping on consumers' toes, no matter how lightly, is something I would avoid.
I'd say that, in no small way, the gameplay is a big part of why hacks are popular (and similarly why mine and the few others' cries for change aren't really heeded), and I think that the hero is merely a part of the package to most. In reality, he's merely an avatar. He's you but not, and he doesn't have a personality. Now, this whole idea of the choices one makes with their Pokemon is who they are doesn't gel with me because I don't really think a person as a trainer and a person as an individual are the same thing. Flannery's a good example. Though in battle she mirrors the type that she uses, out of battle she's a nervous wreck. Could she theoretically channel her trainer-personality regularly? Possibly, but ultimately she's the whole package.
Actually, I agree with you here. I didn't mean to say that who you are as a whole person is determined by who you are as trainer; what I meant to say was that people have to think it does - both the characters themselves, and the players. Flannery is a good example because she might be shy and nervous in real life, but if she batles with fire types, she gets to be someone else for the duration fo the fight. To her Pokemon and her challengers, she is the person she wishes she could be more like - so this whole thing about identiry as a person through identity as a trainer is all about wearing masks; whatever mask you want to wear, or feel you need to wear.
Bringing this back to the MC, in the main games, your character isn't very important to the story- which is to say, who you are doesn't matter. All that matters is that you are the main character, and because the story isn't all too important in these games (but GF does care about its stories, and I do have to stress this), again, who you are doesn't matter and it works out fine. However, if a hack is about the son of Red, a character who actually does have a defined personality (which ironically betrays the whole "avatar" concept), then who you are does matter. Of course, you could still go the silent protag route all you want and it'd be fine, but if you wanted to make a coming-of-age story about this kid? That'd be pretty difficult if he can't talk. It'd also be pretty difficult to get emotionally invested in something like that if he couldn't talk. Could it still capture the adventure and whimsy of the main games if it had this type of story and a voiced MC? Absolutely, I don't see why not. And if you want to make a game modeled after the main games and still have that setup, that'd work too because
the games aren't the formula.
And then we have the games where the hacker wants to tell the story of a pre-existing character, such as Red's son (whom I don't know). In these cases, there's not as much room for the player in that character's head, because it's already occupied with a fully-fledged person, predefined before the player pick up the controller. But my question is why would you want to tell that story in a Pokemon game? IMO, that kind of story telling, where the point-of-view character is predefined, is for movies and novels. Games can - and should - tell their stories differently. Allowing the player to be the hero is more powerful than allowing the player to tell a preexisting hero where to move. (You see this kind of problem in games such as Final Fantasy XIII). If you really want to tell the story of Red's son with him as the PoV character, doing so in a game is not the best way. It is one way, of course, and you could do it. But the conflict between the player's desire to be in the hero's head and the writer's desire to be in the hero's head is always going to be at least an inconvenience.
That's why in principle I am against making the player character pre-determined. In practice it can come out okay, even enjoyable, but you're working in suboptimal conditions as a creator if you set yourself parameters that are internally conflicting. In fact, I'm against making the player character predetermined in all game design. Now, that doesn't mean that speaking protagonists are
always bad. The protag speaking is just one way to predetermine his character. And that's why I, also, would not always ignore a game just because of that one feature. I have in the past ignored Pokemon hacks like Snakewood in particular because I heard they had speaking protagonists, but even I myself know that I'm being too quick to judge. It's similar to how I won't read a book if it has a prologue. I'm stubborn, and I've set myself criteria based on precedent that (surprise surprise) I've now taken on as a part of my identity. That makes it hard to shift these bad habits. I do think that my reasoning for being cautious of these things is good, but my ultimate behaviour is overly exclusionary, yes.
It's like advertising a job. You set up all these elaborate aptitude tests that are way too exclusionary. There are a million people who could do the job well who couldn't pass the test; but the ones that do pass the test will generally have a much higher chance of being successful in the job. It's a defence mechanism. I've yet to read a book with a prologue that was good, or play a Pokemon hack with a speaking Protagonist that was good.
But having said all this I think I might try Pokemon Snakewood, just to see.