As far as MO is concerned, they were cut out due to a rushed production schedule along with roughly ~50% of what was meant to be in the game to begin with. IIRC there are still pre-rendered clips of Elums in MO floating around somewhere on youtube.
Personally I'm more interested in what happens to the whole marine life scene on Oddworld now that Munch is apparently off the table.
what do you think :v