If they ever did an L&K union I expect most people would want to see Jamie and Zoe front it. They were at the helm during the golden years really, even though Emma and Andi were the originals.
But 30 years?!
When they did It Started With Swap Shop back in 2006, they concentrated on the Andi and Emma era of Live and Kicking, and only mentioned Zoe and Jamie in passing, which seemed a bit strange because, as you say, Zoe and Jamie were a very popular pairing at the time and seemed to have much wider appeal to adults. The Andi and Emma bit wasn't very interesting and I'm not sure anyone had especially fond memories of them, but It Started With Swap Shop was longer ago now than their era of Live and Kicking was when they made it.
I think if you count the Andi and Emma and Zoe and Jamie eras of Live and Kicking as two separate shows, it seems to alternate in that Swap Shop, Going Live and Zoe and Jamie Live and Kicking were shows that are really fondly remembered now, but Saturday SuperStore and Andi and Emma Live and Kicking were very popular at the time, but maybe haven't stood the test of time so much and were popular because of the high profile guests and the fact ITV was in a bit of a state or an acquired taste during much of their runs.
She’s a very underused presenter and had a great working relationship with Andi. She only really did L&K and Talking Telephone Numbers. There were rumours at the time that she would be the replacement for Fern on This Morning but that wasn’t to be.
Emma and Andi could work on Friday This Mornings from time to time saying that.
Would love to see Pip and Emma working together again, because the cookery slot on Going Live was always brilliant fun, they were a great pairing and I always looked forward to it. Andi and Emma worked together again on a series for LWT circa 1997, not that I ever saw it.
What possibly didn't help Emma was what happened a decade or so ago when she was on Heart FM and doing very well for them, before abruptly departing to go to Capital, only to then abruptly leave them within a few months when she was passed over for the breakfast show. Two high profile depatures within a year don't really help endear yourself within the industry.
Andi’s had such a unusual career. He was being tipped once as a future BBC DG. As a C4 exec he came up with the successful T4 strand, and then valiantly tried to revive TOTP, which was already a basket case before he took over. Not sure why he ditched the exec side to then do competitions on GMB (though there’s about 10 years in-between in which I’m not sure what he did, apart from voiceovers on stuff like The Big Reunion on ITV2).
Yeah, he did have a strange career, he was clearly very ambitious because he was producing and directing shows at the Beeb like The O Zone while still presenting Live and Kicking. Obviously he then moved to LWT and The Noise was a bit of a flop, but he stayed there for a few years and produced some high profile shows like An Audience With The Spice Girls. You'd have to say his spell at C4 was the most successful behind the scenes, in that T4 was a genuine success and a really important brand for them for many years, and given so many of the shows were imports and repeats it's testament to his skill in creating a brand out of so many disparate elements.
As you say, it didn't work especially well back at the Beeb and Pops was already in terminal decline. It's not fair to blame him entirely for the show's axing, the unsympathetic scheduling didn't help, and while there were many things wrong with that era, it felt more like a spectacle than it had done for many years and it tried hard to make every episode feel like an event. While he was at the Beeb he also launched a T4-esque strand on late night BBC3 called Destination Three, which didn't last very long - and it was never really going to catch on around midnight on BBC3 - but even that gave some valuable early exposure to the likes of Anita Rani and Rufus Hound. He's a really good talent spotter, certainly, loads of people who have gone on to very successful careers probably owe him quite a lot.