I've only glanced at the Rayquaza pictures, but I call shenanigans on it not requiring a Mega stone to evolve. To what I vaguely remember, Lucario was the first Pokemon to Mega evolve with a trainer. Some people may think that a legendary like Rayquaza could easily go through the same process without having a trainer to assist it. But Mega Rayquaza with an item would be incredibly overpowered and I don't believe GF would go that far given that they already screwed up with mega Khan. What I'm thinking is that Rayquaza could only Mega evolve by itself for the sake of the Delta Episode and only during the Delta Episode, similarly how Groudon and Kyogre are in their primal forms when you challenge them even though they have no trainer that caught them at the time. Don't quote me on this though. Like I said, I've only looked over the photos for a split second before the links got lost within the last few pages of the thread.
But in regards to the Battle Frontier chat, the only facilities that wanted to see in the game were the Battle Pike and Pyramid (don't kill me people who think otherwise). The rest were okay too, that one place that relied on your Pokemon's nature was annoying though.
Even though it has been about a day or two since information about the Frontier being missing has been leaked, I really don't mind. ORAS has introduced a lot of new toys for us to play with. Practically everything from XY with the additions of the PokeNav, new Megas, and a slightly updated story mode.
Besides, we got through XY okay despite having only one bland battle facility. How hard can it be to wait until the next set of games? I think I could only tolerate the post game of XY because of the how breeding was updated. Getting perfect Pokemon has never been easier.
Get this,
A few months or so after the release of the game, I usually told myself that I'd be raising Pokemon for the Battle Spot/Maison. First it would be creating a team that seemed well balanced for competitive and in game use. Then I would find myself collecting the members of my team through the wild or the GTS. Next came breeding about 40 boxes of Pokemon for egg moves and IV's before realizing that some Pokemon are only viable if they had tutor moves from a previous generation. So I'd scrap my whole team altogether and end up trying to breed for flawless Shinys with full sets of egg moves. Ooh! Finally got my shiny Swirlix aaaaaaaand ORAS has finally arrived. That was a good 8 and a half months.
I am glad contests are making a comeback though. This really gives Pokemon that are practically unusable for battles a niche in the game besides being story companions or HM slaves. The only thing I may regret is that Lunatone may troll Beauty contests once again with a kamikaze Explosion. Well that or having my Latios lose to a Gloom in a Cleverness contest. But yeah, the whole process of growing berries, making Pokeblocks, and winning Ribbons will probably become a popular topic in the Orange Islands soon enough.