>>35777737Again, that's not how it works Anon.
LGPE are remakes of the most well known Pokemon game, introducing only a single new Pokemon. This is very different from a brand new region, with a new engine, set of Pokemon, and aesthetic that all need to be marketed heavily throughout the year. Notice how new generations tend to be revealed around January/February versus remakes that get announced around May/June. Introducing all of that so close to the release of S/M isn't a good idea.
Gen 7 is barely two years old. The anime is at half its usual episode count near the end, and the promotional material for it is still going strong. My guess is that LGPE began development as a side project when they saw the success of Go and the mainstream appeal of the Switch compared to the 3DS. Had it not been developed, Nintendo would have probably released some other holiday game like NSMB and Gen 8 would still come next year.