1. Actually, they were made totally white, bar the outlines (which I tried to make totally black, bar maybe Flareon, which I can't remember doing) and I shaded them myself.
Oops, my mistake, its just that the original GSC sprites were heavy on dithering, just like all of the others apart from the Flareon.
2. Since when!? Back in my day, you used the original outline and changed the shading >:I
Since the size limits changed from like 60x60 to 80x80 and 96x96
I agree with you, mostly, on the rest. It's been a bit too long for me to totally remember what I did to comment back, but thanks for the critique!
You're very welcome! 