Yeah. I always thought that AJ was planned as a reboot of the series and wasn't supposed to feature Phoenix or any of the old characters at all, except for Ema presumably, since she was introduced in 1-5. Capcom mandated Phoenix's inclusion and so Takumi had to write him in. Just another line in Capcom's book of colossal errors in judgment.
AAI was Capcom over-reacting to fan negativity and throwing every cameo in the book at the player ad nauseum. As a fan of Larry, I was okay with most of it, but yeah, it was overkill, especially in E-5.