A research to attain consciousness.

He claimed he was genuinely channeling his spirit though.
It's a Sonic sitcom.
Over-used and bad to old people who came across it many times, but still new for their target audience (teens).
AoSTH was funnier.

Neo's design is too much, made me remember old X-Men design that has many pockets in their costumes.
What about Metal Sonic Kai?

Or the Metallix Emperor?

Yeah, Stone's indeed a genius.
And that explained why he worshipped Eggman, who's more genius than him.
He could designed Metal to avenge him, but if the story's just revenge/avenging thing ... it's too simple.
I probably wouldn't like it.

Another example of Agent Stone hiding his genius is in the first film. Dr. Robotnik showed him what obviously looks like a foot print and he ssaid he "didn't know". He could've of feigned ignorance for the sake of Robotnik's ego.