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I forgot about Leafeon. And yeah, I guess you just said what I wanted to say in a better way.They actually were asked about this in an interview with Eurogamer
> Eurogamer: On Sirfetch'd in particular, it seems like it's based on an old evolution for Farfetch'd that was in the Gold and Silver demo that was uncovered - is it based on a cancelled design that never made it into a final game?
> Shigeru Ohmori: [Laughs] It's a completely new design. Really when we're looking at the UK as a region, we thought this kind of evolution, with it holding its leek like a sword and having a kind of shield design, really fit with this new region we were designing. So yeah, it's a new design.
That said, skeptical as I usually am of reading beta content as if it's some kind of secret decoder ring for more recent developments, I do think it's at least reasonable to suspect that the GS beta Leafeon was recycled. Though at the same time, I sure a lot of these instances that people point to might not be so direct as "recycling," per se, but rather that there's just a general concept that they've passed around the table before but decided not to go forward with at that time. "Eevee + Leaf Stone evolution" is a pretty obvious idea when you've linked Eevee to the three other stones, but for whatever reason, they rejected the idea in Gen 2. (Maybe they thought it was redundant on top of Jolteon, or the simultaneously added Espeon and Umbreon. Who knows?) Then Gen 4 came around and brought some new evolution methods. Maybe they felt that now it made sense to add new Eeveelutions and revisit the idea. Same for Mime Jr. - it's one of those late-Dex humanoid Pokémon, and many of the others were given baby evolutions in Gen 2. But maybe Mime Jr. was deemed redundant until a later addition (again new evolution methods in this case) reopened the conversation. And as far as the designs go, well, it's a leaf-themed Eevee and a tiny Mr. Mime. They're probably going to look similar to previous attempts whether it's intentional or not.
Plus, do we know how much of the design team even consists of people who've been employed since way back then? You know, theoretically the point of hiring newer, younger people is to bring new ideas to the table, not to rehash old ones.
Also, on recycled designs, there's also one from one medium to another: Porygon2, who possibly got recycled as Pon de Lion, a mascot for Mr. Donut. Pon de Lion's designer even worked at Game Freak at some point, so maybe he just brought the design with him?