Heracross, you do realize that most of those situations happened in filler episodes. As for the important things like the Guren gym battle and the St. Anne.... really, if she wasn't there, the writers would've done something else. For instance, why not make Takeshi suddenly seem like the smart one in those scenarios? Don't you find it sad that the Orange Islands wated the perfect opportunity for Kasumi to do anything useful, considering the area has a lot of water and she's a specialist of water Pokemon? Instead, Satoshi's the one handling all the water transportation, and Kenji's given a Mariru who deals with underwater exploration, thus leaving Kasumi to doing nothing more than Rocket battles.
Anyway, as you know, I'm friggin sick of water Pokemon and their over-excessive use of the dull-a** Water Gun technique, so I personally couldn't be happier that the water specialist was ditched. Why the hell even have a character on the show specializing in one particular type is beyond me. But if anyone else says that Kasumi will "most likely/definitely" come back with no conclusive evidence whatsoever, or suggests the pointless idea of the anime having an entire gym-like quest meant entirely for type-specialists to participate in (or another Whirl Island tournament, for that matter), I swear to god, the second that touch simulators are invented (if not already) and widespread among anyone who uses the internet, I will personally b****-slap that poor sap to no end.
