I think the best decision ever made in Pokemon was the removal of gyms in gen7. Yes, more than the physical special split, more than the removal of HMs, no gyms is what I have always thought to be an excellent idea and I would die on that hill.
Sure it'll make it harder to tell when is the halfway point in the game, but hey, knowing that the games would actually try doing stuff that would be ambitious and or interesting, that was very good to know, and I reccomend future games to try doing different stuff to keep the formula interesting. And finally, yes, I did think the trials were fun.