If you miss them then play them.

You never played Super Paper Mario, did you?  It was a 2d side scroller with no elements of an RPG.

The previous Paper Mario games were RPGs.

Yeah I liked the originals much better. Haven't played that much of Galaxy or Sunshine and never bought them. Not to interested in sunshine, I do want galaxy though, but not really a priority.

I agree with your sentiment and also for the reason that you stated it.

Even though this goes a bit beynd what you are talking about, I will state that I think they did make the right choice in opting for the changes that they made.
I think that a lot of people would have been like WTF another Mario, just like the others.. after Mario 64, thats lame.. blah blah blah, and so forth.

 The leveling system along with extensive dialogue and character development aren't RPG elements?

I miss them too. That's why I got SMB 3 on my gameboy advance, SMB and SMW on the VC :D And of course NSMB on my DS. I can't ask for more right now because I like going back to the old goodies :D

I may not miss 2D gameplay, but I do miss the level structure of SMB3. There's nothing like having 80+ levels with a simple World N-M numbering system.

At least the stars in SMG are collected by going through radically different routes in a level that you might think it's like starting from World 1-1 (The 1st star in Good Egg Galaxy).

Great games, but even a superstar like Mario needs to evolve now and then. Just ask Madonna.

So you've never played it.

There is no leveling system.  The game has levels that you play through, however.  Does that count?

It's a 2D side scrolling game.  With one of the charters you can flip into a 3D world for puzzle solving in some cases, but for the most part you are side scrolling, swimming, etc just like the original mario games.  Yes, there is more dialogue.  No, it's not an RPG in any sense.

Here's a gameplay picture to help you see what the game is like:

There is a world where you have a few riddle based puzzles.  You see, the guy you're fighting is a huge loser who posts on message boards and you are to assume he posts about games he never played. 

There's a bit of irony here if you can find it.

I would say it is a 2D/3D platformer with minor RPG elements, but it is still a platformer in the end. You can level up and add health points and attack strength. But this leveling isn't like most RPG leveling, as it isn't random, and I can't even remember if you can choose what goes up.

Because RPGs have never had random leveling stats.   Oh wait...