Ever since we got Alolan forms, every game needs an NPC that traveled from a different region to hand you an Alolan Vulpix just to explain why they're in the game, when they could have just been based on biome instead of region this entire time.
Every region with a snowy area could have Ice type Vulpix available instead of some random trade or gift NPC, but immediately going into Galar they made half the regionals into UK jobmons so they can't really do that anymore.
Gen 9 as a whole only having two regionals makes it seem like they're getting phased out for convergents or something else anyway, just feels like such missed potential they could have had if it was just adapting older Pokémon to different environments which has always been a popular concept with fakemon designs.