Does anyone else think it's kinda risky to make "an alternate story" as a follow-up to SM?

SM were the most story-heavy in the franchise, and many of the characters are insanely popular. Changing the story and characters like Emerald did to RS or Platinum did to DP could actually make people mad.

For example, almost everyone wanted to know what happened to Lillie after she went to Kanto, or if her family would ever be reunited again. But now there's a real possibility of USUM's story being so different from SM that the most obsessive fans would see "SM Lillie" and "USUM Lillie" as two different characters, and get disappointed/upset that SM Lillie's story never got a conclusion.

The other option is keeping the game almost exactly the same, but that would be pretty shitty for a different reason.