Should there have been some way to battle Leaf instead of Red in HG/SS?

[Swadloon]

It was very disappointing for me to know that Leaf was not in the game. It was understandable to battle only Red in the original G/S/C games, since R/B/G/Y didn't have a female protagonist, but in HG/SS? It's just unexplainable.
I would like to be able to battle her not only in HG/SS, but in the Pokémon World Tournament in B2/W2 as well.
What do you think? Which way do you think she could have been inserted in those games?

 

[Bolt Strike]

I don't think it would've been a good idea, because how would you determine whether or not you would fight Red or Leaf? It's not like BW2 where your copy of HGSS can read data from FRLG and determine stuff like gender (speaking of which, I'm completely shocked BW2 never got something like this, it would've been perfect for Memory Link.

 

[Swadloon]

I don't think it would've been a good idea, because how would you determine whether or not you would fight Red or Leaf? It's not like BW2 where your copy of HGSS can read data from FRLG and determine stuff like gender (speaking of which, I'm completely shocked BW2 never got something like this, it would've been perfect for Memory Link.

No need to read data from FRLG, just assuming that someone who chose the female protagonist in HG/SS probably also chose the girl in FRLG would have been kinda enough, so Leaf would be available.
I would not be against the idea of making those ones who chose the boy battle Leaf, while those who chose the girl battle Red, although it would remove the idea of 'meeting your old self' (which was removed for those who chose the girl in FRLG, anyway).

 

[Helioptile]

I would think it would've been a good idea, maybe dependent on version or PC gender. Maybe they couldn't decide which so they just kept Red to be more like GSC. Now that you bring it up, though, why wasn't she at the PWT?

 

[esm8m]

I was really hoping that there would be a way to rebattle Leaf in addition to or instead of Red in HG/SS, especially because HG/SS was called a sequel to FR/LG in some of the prerelease media, which suggested to me it would be taking cues as much from FR/LG as GSC. I would have liked having a new area like the Sevii Islands where we would have met Leaf and battled her. The only problem would have been selecting a team, since Red took most of the iconic Pokémon already, and giving her the same team would be boring. Admittedly, she doesn't show up at all if you pick Red instead, so maybe having both would seem contradictory to FR/LG. But I don't think that's a major problem.

I think it would have been possible to read data from FR/LG to choose whether to have Red or Leaf - HG/SS had Pal Park, remember? If they can check what Pokémon are on the file, it shouldn't be a big leap to check what gender the player chose. Just default it to Red and then change it to Leaf if an FR/LG game with a female player character is inserted into the second slot. There's no reason it would have to be always one or the other - it could switch around. But any other way to pick between the two would have been fine, too... It would have been better than having her erased completely.