I really hate to be that person, but does a company like Game Freak really measure a particular games' success in anything but sales numbers? I dunno, maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about, but it's not like The Pokemon Company International sends out a survey on behalf of Game Freak and asks "well how did you enjoy x game", yknow? It's hard to really determine what Game Freak really takes into consideration and how in-tune they generally are with the Pokemon fanbase as a whole.
Of course not, I was going to mention that myself and say it's why I'm not hopeful at all that longtime fans will be listened to, since the numbers are as good as ever, but I didn't want to be totally negative. Oh well.