Yeah it seems like folks are still trying to make out where Mania lands in the classic timeline if at all as well as the impact of the phantom ruby coz lots of folks have pointed out how it would be strange of it to appear in Sonic's past only for him (and possibly Eggman as well) to totally forget about it (tho Sonic has had forgetful moments or had instances of altered memories) so that ones like super fuzzy imo
It does seem like 06 is being acknowledged more but I have no idea how much impact or influence it'll have on mainline games or the comics. The new appearance of Elise was the result of a poll from the Sonic JP twitter where characters can show up in "altered realities" where the person is the same but their story/existence is slightly changed (like one had Shadow and Infinite as band mates before they get into a fight and split) but either way having characters who haven't appeared or been recognized in a while come back is super nice. it was actually a matter of either Elise or Merlina for the last poll only for Elise to win and get the splash illustration with Silver and the one with Shadow was a choice between Infinite or Cream
But yeah piecing together Sonic lore is definitely a sort of game in and of itself and linking up with other sonic fans and diving into the meat of things both apparent and not so is really fun
and the loosening of the reigns with Shadow honestly i'd say was thanks to Ian but also Evan given the way she's presented him in her own comic, Ghosts of the Future, and just having a good understanding of the nuances of his character. So even tho there's some limitations there's at least a bit more leeway to keep him similar to how he's presented in some of the older games like Adventure, Heroes or even Shadow the Hedgehog but also other media like say Sonic X (which at least in the JP version did well in staying close to games canon) so it's exciting to see what'll come of it