Because Gold and Silver were being developed and Ho Oh was apparently initially planned as the ultimate Bird legendary in Gen 1. Also Lugia didn't exist yet until later, though we don't know if that was before or after the second movie was being made

Is it weird that I like a lot of this beta stuff more than what we actually got?

Nothing wrong with that. I'm digging the Octillery that's more tank/soldier like than what we got in the final design.

Wans't Tirtouga also plan to be a G2 Pokemon at one point too?

What I'm seeing is an attempt to use Gen 1 nostalgia to pad the sales for a testbed of a game.

I mean, most of what I see are things that either were popular demands or some pretty out there ideas.

I'm personally more excited about the new ground broken as far as connectivity and specialized hardware is concerned. I've been waiting for them to start taking advantage of the Switch's inherent modular nature.

That beta Raikou looks kinda badass, I wouldn't mind seeing it reworked into a new Pokemon.

Alongside that Clefairy Hitmontop thing? No, those were just random designs Sugimori came up with for the magazine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4tt-UNc1g4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2vcZR9v1hk

I've seen some people that are not very happy about this

https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/10/17...sing-disney-xd

I can understand why they are not airing it but still its not like he is in actual black face, he is just dressed up as a monkey.