But then why were there Toa with the same names as the Toa Mata?  They existed tens of thousands of years prior to Mata Nui crashing onto Aqua Magna.  And why was there a villager named Makuta?  I'll grant you that it explains why the camouflage generated such an improbably geographically diverse island, but it doesn't really account for the seven G2 characters who have G1 counterparts.

Unless you're suggesting that the Protectors managed to generate a signal at the Temple of Time that triggered the release mechanism for the Toa Mata from within the Codrex, causing them to be jettisoned down to Aqua Magna in advance of the Mata Nui robot, allowing them to defeat a rogue member of the Brotherhood of Makuta who had teleported out of the Mata Nui robot long ago, disguised himself as a Mask Maker, and accidentally got trapped in a pocket dimension, only to be defeated by the Toa during his escape attempt, who used the teleportation technology of the Red Star to beam back into their canisters, ready to be shot out again in 1000 years when Takua assembled the six Toa stones, thus embarking on the series of adventures with which we are all so familiar.

Because if that's what you're suggesting...

Then maybe.

SPIRIT, what the heck?

See, this is the kind of connection theory I'm least fond of. I'd rather have both series stand on their own than have one metaphorically (or in this case, literally) subsumed by the other. I appreciated both universes and sets of characters too much to want either of them destroyed for the sake of an unnecessary connection between the two.