I wanted to write some more thoughts on the future of this mod. I was there when Project M was first launched and I want to remind everyone that it took a LOT of time and effort from the developers that P:M got to where it is today. For example, I am the one that originally started the Facebook page that eventually became the official one for Project M. There were two Facebook pages for the project at the time, the official one and mine. The reason my page became much more popular is because I kept posting new content (such as matches etc.) to the page frequently. Eventually I gave up the admin rights to the page to the developers and they started using the page. I wanted to tell this story as an example of the persistence that is required to make something big. If anyone is interested, go the Project M Smashboards thread and start reading from the beginning and you get a grasp of the various hurdles and difficulties the dev team faced over time.
It is true that SD Remix is sort of "in between" of Melee and Project M at the moment. But compared to Project M, our situation is much better in a lot of aspects. First off, Melee's engine is in place and requires no modification. Secondly, SD Remix is being supported by Achilles, the creator of the most successful and widespread Melee mod ever. Thirdly, while Project M had to fight for years to establish itself as it's own game, SD Remix (combined with 20xx Hackpack) is more of an extension to Melee. In other words, the audience for this project is already there!
At some point in time, people are going to get bored of the meta-game of Melee, particularly the reign of the top tiers. While I think some top characters in Melee are not totally "fleshed out" (e.g. Fox/Marth/Sheik), there is only so much variety a game with incomplete character balance can offer. I am not saying this will happen any time soon. If anything, I believe it will be a slow and gradual process, the first signs of which we can already see. These are merely my personal opinions and open for debate:
-Prevalence of Fox. Increasing popularity. The character being pushed to it's limit.
-Counters for Fox, the rise of Marth mains, possibly the "true" 20xx character
-Counters for Marth, namely Sheik and Captain Falcon, possibly even Yoshi (although the latter I find unlikely)
(As for Falco, Jigglypuff and Peach, I think they have been more or less "fleshed out". In my opinion, Jigglypuff is overrated as a character)
Meanwhile, starting from the release of the 20XX Hackpack, low-tier mains are going to start to experiment with SD Remix characters (in addition to other Smashers). I believe that there will be, in general, a two-way split between these low-tier mains, this is merely a rough oversimplification:
a.) Those that continue playing the "vanilla version" of their character because they believe in the potential of their character (e.g. Link mains). These people will not want to play SD Remix versions of their characters because they believe it may hinder their development in Melee or because they dislike the changes due to somewhat liking their characters in Vanilla Melee.
b.) Those that prefer the SD Remix characters and start to dislike their respective characters in Melee because they feel these characters do not have enough potential in Vanilla Melee. These people will rather invest their time into SD Remix characters because they have more fun playing this way, which may spark interest in competitive events for the mod.
As 20XX Hackpack becomes more widespread, SD Remix will most likely gain more popularity as a result. The question is whether the majority of people prefer the SD Remix characters or not, and invest time into the mod therein. Because of this, I think it is very important to focus on the release of the 20XX Hackpack to ensure SD Remix gets the best possible representation. The rest is up to the Smash community.
E:
What about Nintendo? As of now, Project M is losing popularity due to Nintendo's policies. Nintendo will oppose mods like SD Remix as well. This is why I think it is vital for the community to take a stand against the current policies of Nintendo as a company. I am immensely frustrated with Nintendo, as the only reason it deals with the competitive community today is that they have finally realized that the competitive community can be massively profitable for them. WE are a God-send to Nintendo, and not the other way around. I want to remind everyone of this because companies would not have power without people supporting them by buying their products. There can stil be large-scale Project M tournaments and majors, but it is going to take dedicated effort from the community in a form of campaigns and feedback directly at Nintendo. Corporations are not supposed to be these shadowy super-powers abusing their power but rather results of the choices made by us, the consumers. Nintendo is not going to simply change their policies, because corporations are by default greedy and oppressive due to our economic system. Rather, we need to change Nintendo's policies as it's supporters. This has already happened several times, even though skeptics at the time said things like "Nintendo will never support the competitive Smash community". We need to convince Nintendo that suppressing mods like Project M and SD Remix is a STUPID decision of them as a company. Just like when Nintendo was going to ban the stream from EVO. Just like Nintendo has neglected the competitive community for years before realizing "Hey! We can actually make money out of the competitive Smash community! Perhaps we should not neglect and suppress them!" Nintendo has made ******** choices and policies over the years, and suppressing mods is clearly one of them.