Well, now there's a blast from the past! I was totally unaware of most of that stuff at the time... other than the Trendmasters figures in stores and Godzilla showing up on TNT's MonsterVision. As far as I was concerned, those two things were the coolest and I didn't need anything else!
I wonder what a modern version of this article would entail? They'd emphasized that the new Hollywood movie would be the first to feature Godzilla alongside his popular Toho co-stars, a bit about how incredibly popular Shin Godzilla was in its native Japan, a bit about Toho's plans to expand the their involvement with the series worldwide, etc.