One thing I'd love to do with the franchise is to retcon most evolution methods.
>level evo
Bread and butter. Levels for certain species might be tweaked, but keep the concept as is.
>trade evo
Cancer. Just retcon them to use stones.
>day/night-based evo
Cool if you're keeping a consistent day/night cycle across the series, WITH GAMEPLAY IMPACT. The problem is that Game Freak is too retarded to not trash away good mechanics.
>happiness/affection-based
Fix the conceptual redundancy. Then you'll get something with some potential as evo method. It'll be as good/bad as the methods you have to increase happiness/affection, if you just "IF U WALK WITH POGAYMAN THAN ITLL BE HAPPY!" of course players will find it stupid.
>stones
Thematically reorganize them, so they cover more types. E.g. FireMagma, GrassJungle, etc. This way a half dozen of them would be enough.
>special locations (moss rock, ice rock, magnetic field)
Make them redundant with stones, now you can choose between including one or another in a game. And if you do you can give them different advantages - e.g. evolution in special locations is free, but through evo stones it's convenient.
>gimmick
On each gen reassess if the gimmick is worth keeping or if it's better to retcon the mon to evolve another way.
