Speaking of other gens, I'm definitely doing Gen2. HeartGold or SoulSilver I don't know yet but I think I'll go SS if only for that nazi title.
Any word of what team should I go for? Gen2 is a bit of trash.
If it's Soldier, Octillery is a must.
Actually, I'm generally quite fond of Octillery anyway. It's slow, but versatile. I'm surprised we haven't gotten a mega form with Mega Launcher already, since it's all about beams and projectiles.
Skarmory's generally always a good recommendation. Teaching it Fly might be a viable way of PP stalling some enemies, since it already tends to be tanky as heck.
And Gengar's not a bad choice either, if you're willing to use a final evo that was in 1st gen. IIRC, one of the early towers is swarming with Gastly, at least at night, so I ended up using one pretty heavily in my original Gold playthrough. Misdreavus is in there somewhere, but generally only late/post game.
Forretress is apparently stronger than I remember it being, (I just remember it being for walling, using spikes and Rapid Spin, exploding, and not much else, but apparently it's got a halfway decent atk score and some actually usable moves, so what do I know) so yeah, that's not a bad idea.
I can't vouch for it myself, but apparently Furret can be somewhat versatile as well. It can be tutored the three elemental punches, use STAB Return, and can be taught a number of HM moves including Surf so you can keep more appropriate moves on your other mons.
And, uh, Smeargle. Smeargle's stats are generally garbage, but you can do a
lot of fun stuff with it. I ran a bizarre Spore / Super Fang / Milk Drink / Transform set on one, which I quite enjoyed, and I've seen some other, much more actually effective sets out there.
There's also some guys who might or might not be worth it due to the National Dex being a thing:
Togepi's line finally gets a non-garbage third evolution that can be a lot of fun. But it requires a Shiny Stone that in-game is stuck in the post-game.
Similarly, I'm pretty sure Magmarizers and Electrizers were added by then, so getting a Magmortar and/or Electivire might be a similarly neat choice. Both it and Magmortar are also trade evolutions, but you said you could handle that. Also, their second evolutions aren't as terrible as Togetic, so they might still be worth using before the post-game.