>>37397810I actually think that they ditched these because they wanted to show the opposing trainer throw the Pokeball and stand behind their pokemon during battle. It would be awkward to go from a 3d model to a 2d image and then back to a 3d model for the battle and then back to a 2d portrait for the end dialogue. So, the best way to do that would be to have the 3d model strike a pose and then smoothly transition into battle. It's not as pretty, but I see what they were going for.
