Alola has a lots of great things to offer, but the story never let you explore. Like Hano Grand Resort. It has some of the funniest and wholesome little events like Pikachu wedding or Chuuster and I think there is also Kahili or at least her father, who is owner of the whole Resort. But the game put Faba in your way and you're forced to go to Aether before you can even explore the whole Resort.
But yeah, I think after Alola, it quickly dropped in quality. LGPE are probably the most useless games in a franchise, even more useless than Sun and Moon and talking about ShSw is just sad, especially when you look at Mario, Zelda, Yo-Kai Watch or Animal Crossing and see how they improved going from 3DS/WiiU to Switch.