>>36445600Chateau and Stranger House were the best. Neither are required so to even bother going there adds to the exploration and what story there is to find plays off your imagination.
Just how RPGs should be outside the main story.
I didn't like the region (I'd personally have rathered the Pokémon had first appeared elsewhere and the slowness of the first games didn't help at all) but Gen 4 really did this well in a lot of respects.
And it was one of the flaws with HG/SS that they tried to force something more than that.