Fair enough. I'm in the minority on preferring a big chunk of '99 over 2011, anyway. To the point where on most arcs, beside Exams ('99 does better) and Greed Island (liked 2011 more), I can't really pick between the better version, since they're both good in different ways.
At minimum, though, I would recommend giving the first episode of '99 a shot. It's an important part of Gon's motivation to go on the journey in the first place that got totally omitted from 2011 for some weird reason. I suppose it creates some minor continuity issues when it comes back up, but nothing so significant it can't be overlooked to treat the '99 as canon in those regards (like, literally just a couple lines of dialogue that contradict it and a brief scene added to fill in the missing gap). And it's a pretty good episode in its own right. Even gives Mito a bit of depth despite her lack of presence in the larger plot.