Pocket Monsters: The Animation

In the late 90's, a lightnovel adaptation of the Pokémon anime was written by Takeshi Shudō, head writer of the original Pokémon anime. The series only lasted two volumes before quietly being cancelled and will likely never see a return as Shudō passed away back in 2010. I've had trouble finding out much information about what the two volumes that were released contained, as they were never released outside of Japan. From what I have heard, it sounds like they deviate from the anime quite a bit. Most notably in it's world building, which is a lot more detailed. Some of the things that I could find include:

• Ash's mother, Delia Ketchum, is shown to have an actual job. Specifically, she runs a restaurant called the Pallet House.
• More details on Ash's father are given. He was supposed to have been a deadbeat who left his family after failing to make it as a Pokémon trainer. This was apparently a very common occurrence in this iteration of the Pokémon world.
• People are considered legal adults at the age of 10. This doesn't just mean that they are able to become Pokémon trainers and head out on their own, but also that they are legally able to marry and have to pay taxes, along with everything else that comes with being an adult.
• The Samurai that challenges Ash to a Pokémon battle early on is just a generic bug catcher.

I'm sure that there's probably more that I haven't heard about yet, but just from those details it was clear that the series would have been very different from the anime had it continued.
What are your thoughts on this mostly forgot part o the Pokémon franchise? Do you think the series should have been translated into English (or your language of choice)? Do you wish that the series had been able to finish it's run? Are you glad that it died off so early?