Three years isn't really rushing, and Color Splash came out on the dead Wii U.  Would have almost certainly sold at least a million had it come out on the Switch.  Also, the developer for the Mario and Luigi series went bankrupt.  According to Nintendo the reason for Paper Mario's direction was because Mario and Luigi was their Mario RPG franchise.  With the dev going broke now seems like a good time to put that series on hiatus and make a more traditional RPG Paper Mario game.

As with every other rumor. Take it with a massive grain of salt.
I'll believe it when it comes straight from the horse's mouth.

If paper Mario releases this year it will likely be closer to 4 years. Also colour splash wasn't a big flop, according to vgchartz it sold just a little under 900k, which for a late wii u title isn't terrible. A paper mario title on switch would likely sell 2 million minimum.

They've become more aware of what fans want and making games they want made this generation, imo. People have been begging for this for over a decade. If they think it will sell really well, they could have reprioritized schedules to push it up further.

I also believe a lot of Wii U games were intentionally pushed off from being released, well after they were complete, to spread out their first party games since Wii U had such terrible 3rdnparty support. Switch doesn't have that problem. 

Paper Mario, I can see coming. I was expecting something like that this year anyway. I mean, it's one of the Nintendo IP that aren't on the Switch yet.

A 2D Metroid however seems weird, especially in light of Metroid Prime 4 coming at a later date. I simply don't expect Nintendo to develop 2 Metroid games side by side, especially not in a way that both would have released about the same time if MP4 wouldn't have been scrapped and restarted along the way.

What if they were planning to release both around the same time? What if then2-D Metroid game, is a prequel/side story to the greater arc going on in MP4, like Arkham blackgate was to the Arkham 3D games? I think it would generate more hype and before successful.

I may or may not be excited, but I am certainly not "excite", whatever that means.

But that's what they did with prime and fusion.

We'll know if this is true or not in the next Direct. Which, hopefuly, it will air soon.