Mining Emerald

Today I went to K-Mart, which i don't do too often since its usually a pretty horrible store with nothing you're looking for but thats another story. Anyways in the game section they had a non-used open copy of Pokemon Emerald for $10, so I quickly grabbed and bought it. It was just the game it self with no box or instruction booklet, but no matter how much I like to keep that memorabilia that is the packaging it is just not worth the extra $25 it would cost me with it.
Emerald was a game I debated endlessly about on forums that it was going to come out since Ruby & Sapphire came out, and yes I ended up being right. I beleive it was announced for Japan before the FireRed/LeafGreen remakes came out in the US. I was even more hyped for Emerald than the remakes for some reason, even though it was just an updated version of R/S while the R/B remakes would have more new stuff (remake > updated game).
By the time Emerald came out I was not really a gamer anymore and I was busy with real life that I didn't care to buy it. After all, it was just an updated version of R/S, I could wait until it got a price drop. I waited and waited and never saw a price drop..I thought i was going to have to fork the full price of a 2 year old game but luckily i was able to get it for cheap. Now the dilemma I have is wether I should start playing it. I feel if I do I might be all pooped out of the Pokemon formula by the time Diamond & Pearl comes out and not enjoy them as much or not want to play them. However if I wait it might be hard to play the game after all the improvements I find in D&P and i'd also be too busy with D&P to even care.