Okay, so I was going to make this post into an entire thread at one point, but I think I'll be able to condense this into an indeterminately long post that still (shouldn't be) too much of a headache to read and understand. So, with that in mind, I've thought things over, and I understand that this topic may have been discussed on this thread before. That being said, I'm just going to go out and say it... I geneuinely don't think yearly core series Pokémon game releases are or ever were a problem. In fact, in a few specific cases I would actually call this a net positive overall.
A number of Pokémon fans continue to be under the impression that many of the issues plaguing modern core series Pokémon games- not all of them, but a lot of them- would at least be easier to rectify if the developers just had some more time to actually work on these games. The common consensus opinion seems to be that the developers, usually Game Freak but also ILCA since the release of Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, deserve at least one extra year to work on newer installments, if not more, and that these games having more time to bake in the oven would help them feel much more polished. I cannot say I disagree with the argument that video games need to have the development cycle time they deserve to be able to grow into all-time classics or even just, dare I say it, an actually enjoyable experience. So certainly giving the developers an extra year would make these games better in the eyes of the public right? ...right?
Here's the dirty little secret about Pokémon games in the past that have been delayed. The final product we did eventually receive was still ultimately the same product. The most recognized instance of a delayed core series Pokémon game would probably be Diamond & Pearl's release, originally slated for the fall of 2005, being pushed back a year to what would eventually be revealed as September 2006, roughly two years after the last core series release in Emerald on the Game Boy Advance. Eagle-eyed fans will notice that had the fourth generation started a year earlier as it was intended to, the third generation games on GBA would have fallen into a similar situation as the Nintendo Switch lineup, where on average, one new Game Freak-made installment was released each calendar year. (2003 had no new games, but 2004 had both the Kanto remakes and Emerald.) It's clear that the developers of Diamond & Pearl did exactly what fans want the developers of the newer games to do nowadays. So in that case... why do Diamond & Pearl still suck? At least compared to Platinum, anyway. I don't know if I'm in the minority in this or not, but it feels like the Diamond & Pearl we did get felt like what would have been the 2005 version as opposed to a well-made 2006 version, explaining things such as the limited PokéDex and decreased frame rate compared to the Gen 3 installments on GBA (which embarrassingly remain the only games in the entire core series to be able to manage 60 FPS, I might add). Oh, but everything's okay, because we got Platinum eventually anyways, right? Yeah, we did- two whole years after Diamond & Pearl, the longest gap between a pair of base games and their definitive version to date, and three whole years after the intended 2005 release date Diamond & Pearl initially had. At that rate Game Freak might as well have made Gen 4 sequel games instead, but- wait, what's that? When they actually did this with Black & White for a change, those sequels weren't in development for any longer than a definitive version game would be (owed largely to the fact that scrapped "Pokémon Grey" content was reused for Black 2 & White 2), and people think Black 2 & White 2 are some of the best games in the core series catalog post-Gen 5's active lifespan?
If you made it this far into my post, congratulations. You've likely noticed by now that the issue isn't one extra year of development time being withheld by Game Freak. If Sword & Shield, Legends: Arceus, or Scarlet & Violet all got that extra year, there is a historical precedent to assume that the game could still be unenjoyable for a large number of fans regardless of how well any of these games or their multimedia merchandise performed financially. Even if you give them, say, three years, you're left with a game like Platinum, which, yeah, it's great that a polished version of Sinnoh does exist somewhere, but an argument can be made that Platinum is what Diamond & Pearl should have felt like from the start to begin with. The real fixes are going to come from things like content availability, accessibility measures, and giving players reasons to come back once the main story and/or postgame is completed. Other franchises have proven that yearly video game releases in a series can be enjoyable and affordable, and in this greater context, it's not a matter of how much time Game Freak and ILCA are given. It's a matter of what they choose to do with that time.