I gotta say those are impressive pictures... I feel lousy that I plan to attend my local promo tour wearing a lucario hat only, and not a full fledged costume xD
I doubt it will be forgotten... Each generation has contributed something to the Pokemon games. Either pokemons we keep wanting (like the gen 1 starters) or features (like the ability of transferring pokemon between games) who knows when we are a few generations ahead what will we be using from...
RE: how has pokemon has affected your life?
It has definitely given me lots of entertainment, something to obsess about by times xD, lots of great times (still remember when my first pokemon evolved back in yellow, I was like "WTH?" (my english wasnt broad enough to understand the word...