It does look better, I think, with those small touches. Looking at it more I'm seeing a few areas where you eliminated details from the original sprite such as the line by the shoulder and the curved line by the elbow which you shortened into a straight line. I would think you'd want to incorporate as many of those details as you could since, like the nose, they make your sprite look more polished.
I'm not really feeling the feet on the evolution. If that pink one in the middle is supposed to be its belly then it is sticking out too far. The way you've drawn the outline on the whole torso, particularly the left side, implies that the body doesn't extend that far down. What I mean to say is, that pink area looks like it sticks out like the feet.
The tongue also looks paper-flat because that black line runs completely across is. If you look at a sprite like this one:
you can see that by having the line only go part of the way you still get the impression of seeing both the top and underside of the tongue (like in your sprite) but with the sense that it's a thicker and rounder tongue (unlike your sprite).
You're the best when it comes to constructive criticism! :D Heck, you explain it so thoroughly and so respectfully that you actually help me and don't offend me at the same time (which some other people have done before.) :P
Just thought I'd say that. :P
Anyway, I used your advice, and decided to change the belly from pink to yellow. Pink stood out too much, in my opinion. :\ Anyway, here it is! :D
Also, here's a non-Pokemon sprites I made quite a while ago. :D