Granted, but I dunno putting Gary back in the anime should point to somehting. I think that anyway.Still Gary no longer interessed in becoming a Pokemon Master. Therefor the odds for Gary to participate in the Shinou league is slim.
Shinji/Paul, well if he's only around in the Shinou region, he is most likely going to be beaten by Ash during the Shinou league. And yeah, league-filler-trainer is going to defeat Ash.
Yeah Shinji has to be beaten by Satoshi. It makes sense and he may the stereotypical epiphany "What I was doing...was wrong...?"
Anyway, back on task guys. I honestly think the trade is better in the grand scheme of things, I mean like Buizel is happy that he is gonna be simply just fighting and I am sure Aipom is gonan be happy that she is going to be in contests all the time now.
I wanna just say one thing I think people should realize. Everyone seems upset by the trade is really just that they think Aipom has the Bayleef+Satoshi bond still. She still loves him, but the thing is she obviously has no problem with being used by another trainer. I mean think about when Mushashi beat Hikari in the mock contest. Also its not like Satoshi is going to vanish into thin air, same with Hikari. I mean it's not like they are charecters of the day like with the Lickitung trade for Wobby. XD I mean they are still going to be there and they still can all care for each other.