If mainline Pokemon has to be a yearly release due to merch, anime, TCG, etc, why not just go back to making spinoffs during downtime? That way Pokemon could get a 3-4 year break for dev time and they could still make profit off of the series.
You could go back to making Mystery Dungeon games, maybe Pokemon Conquest sequels, new spinoffs, etc etc, make merch for those spinoffs, then the anime could potentially do stuff like Legend of Thunder but for newer gens in between gens.
Is there any reason this wouldn't work?
Sorry if this is worded like shit, I've been up for almost 18 or so hours.