Wah. Nobody likes Ranger. :'(
Maybe I liked it more than most because I had played all of the other crappy DS pokemon games before it, and I didn't care about it being a time staller for D/P because I didn't care about those games. Pokemon's never been too good at spin offs, and they always need HAL's help to make any that are any good. (Pokemon Snap, both Pokemon Stadiums, and they were involved in Pokemon Pinball. Pokemon Puzzle League and puzzle challenge don't count as real spin offs since they were Tetris attack Clones (or whatever Tetris Attack was originally (and I know they weren't HAL, I'm just saying those were only successful cause they used an already successful game for it))) They created Pokemon Ranger, which also was way more popular in Japan, another addition to HAL's good pokemon spin offs.
HAL is one of Nintendo's most valuable team mates because of the Kirby Series, which may not seem important, but it's way more popular in Japan than in the states/canada. In the equal amount of time Kirby squeak squad was released in Japan and US, Squeak Squad had sold 5x more copies in Japan than in the US. This info was released on a sales chart, which was then posted on Kirby Rainbow Resort. Don't get confused by what I said. I mean in an equal amount of time. Not since a certain date. Plus the Kirby Anime was very Popular in Japan, but not in the States/Canada because 4Kids butchered it. It's one of the few Nintendo anime that lasted a long time. Kirby had 100 episodes, which is amazing for ANY anime let alone a video game based one, and they were gonna do more, but they main person in charge of the show decided to end the series ahead of time.
HAL also created the Adventures of Lolo series, and the Super Smash Bros Series. (Smash being one of Nintendo's most crucial, and successful series)
So my long way of saying it, is that HAL knows what it's doing when it comes to Pokemon, and you should believe in them to continue to make awesome Pokemon games.