Unlikely that new fans will have seen that particular episode, or any episodes before Advanced. (I barely remember that episode myself! *sob*)
I didn't think the old color scheme was "ugly", just different. The Voice Actors, though, have change quite a bit since then. For example, Ash's VA, Veronica Taylor, no longer stresses on sounding too much like a boy anymore.
Oh yeah, and Pikachu's lost a bit of weight as well. Must be the constant walking!
After breezing through the week's schedule on Cartoon Network's official site, it looks like every weekday, there's a random movie on at 11:00 AM EST. Because of this, I really doubt that CN will increase the frequency of Pok?mon to more than 4 times a week.
Oh, and since yesterday's showing of Pok?mon: Heroes, that officially means that Cartoon Network finally showed all 7 Pok?mon movies thus far. It's about time! (that movie suprised me to no end...)