I've heard the third gen games are considered the worst of the mainline games. Is this true?

They are treated as the worst but they aren't really, they sold the least for what it's worth.  Genuine criticisms are the loss of night day cycle, too much of the exploration being water/HM dependant and a larger focus on new pokemin to the detriment of Elite four rosters.

There are subjective complaints such as music and design of the new pokemon.

To me, that's Gen IV easily.

Hoenn is a good fun region.

starts singing *oh happy day*

...Nearly all of which can be corrected with this remake!

DO WANT.

Who could have possibly foreseen such an unpredictable development?!

I agree with you, these small cosmetic changes does'nt seem enough to make it a mega evolution. My guess is that it's something entirely different. This reminds me of maybe a ''awakened'' mode of those legendaries. Kinda like Xerneas has it's ''normal'' mode with grey antlers and a ''active'' mode with rainbow antlers. In the case of Xerneas it's completly cosmetic (one is for outside of battle the other mode automaticaly activates inside battle and has no effect). Maybe it's something similar but more than just cosmetic. Maybe they turn glowy when they have a certain item equiped.

Man, I couldn't be happier right now. Pokémon Sapphire was my first real gaming experience and will always hold a special place in my heart. It's almost like back then, when I was waiting for my birthday to get my first ever console along with the game after seeing it at school. Feels good, man.

Every region so far has been represented in at least DS level visuals, and I personally can't wait to see some of the places remastered. Also interested in seeing the changes to the character designs, I liked what they did when they updated Gold/Silver and I'm curious to see what they'll do to Hoenn and its inhabitants.

Black White was pretty dramatic actually.