Where's the indication we're not?
What is the indication Gen 9 is happening? The Arceus game is being treated like a mainline pokemon game and will probably get DLC later in the years. Given how rushed the Sword/Shield games were, I would think Gamefreak would give themselves more time to work on the next games.
We're getting Galar characters appearing, what does it matter they don't appear right away? Most past series Gym leaders used to appear in only 2 or 3 episodes before never appearing again. Most rivals like Hau in SM or the XY rivals like Trevor were always treated like afterthoughts.Galar has been treated like absolute GARBAGE. Characters take forever to appear. Pokemon are reduced to mere cameos. Locations are barely explored. Gimmicks treated like afterthoughts.
I never want to see another region suffer that abysmal treatment it got.
As for locations, back in Johto/AG/DP/Unova/XY was all those generic forests and made up towns and cities that never appeared in the games was any better? 90% of old episodes outside the Gym leader towns or some specific plot locations were in generic forests or towns. The generic location of Johto filler or a Sinnoh filler would look exactly the same for example.
It's highly unlikely for them to go back to the old Gym formula, they left it behind when they could have done it again this gen and it's been done for two gens now. I could definitely see them keeping a world tournament of Gym leaders or Elite 4 members going forward. From the sounds of your post it sounds like you want the show to go back to the old formula which the show moved on from after 2016. How is that not expecting a return to status quo?That...that sounds awful.
Why would anyone want that?