IMO, voltorb and electrode were kind of genius. Many people don't remember this, but in both R/Y/B/G and G/S, the voltorbs are mimics. The items in the ground look like pokeballs, so you go to grab the item, and it turns out is actually a very fast pokemon that likes to explode.

It's not a bad idea. The paper mario team seems obsessed with fixing what is not broken but are creatively sterile, while the Pokemon team can always come up with cool designs and decent stories but are stuck in the past. So if the pokemon team takes paper mario they could just grab the gameplay from TTYD while they pour their creativity in creating charming, unique characters. The Paper Mario team on pokemon is more of a stretch, but maybe they could inject some innovation in the gameplay.