Smashboards

I sincerely think he's a pretty good character. Labbing a ton of bomb tricks. I feel this will really shape up his meta, and you can see it from Tweek's latest highlight video.

I still haven't played as him yet, but from what I've seen he's basically top 20 if not top 10. Projectile stuff is pretty strong as you said, but he's very solid in every other respect. The only issues I can see are his recovery and difficulty killing early.

I get the impression most people would underrate him, so it's surprising someone else would agree with me. I don't think people realise how much Grenades can do for his game. Half of his strong combos will likely rely on that. His recovery won't even be that much of an issue, again, thanks to Grenades. His recovery is actually deceptively good, in that you can really mix it up, thanks to his aerial jumps, Side B, airdodging, attack, etc.

I can see what you mean about him having trouble killing, but I've rarely suffered it. A good Banjo will either always get a read off of Side B (airdodging, offstage, landings) or he will just combo off of grenades into stuff like Fair or Side B. I personally stale Fair a decent bit, but it can actually kill in the low hundreds and it's his safest aerial by far.

Lots of people seem to be doing so. It seems pretty obvious to me that he's really good and top players seem to be waking up to it now. I honestly don't understand why there hasn't been more fanfare in that regard, especially given how quick nerf/ban talk came up for Joker and Hero.

I'm thinking more in terms of vulnerability than distance for his recovery. Think ZSS levels of offstage oppression and options or tools that can safely pressure like Explosive Flame or Nikita. I don't think it's completely free, but I do think it will struggle with the other top tiers. Side-B will mitigate things, but only if he still has uses. I think I heard about Zachray's Banjo doing well until he met a ZSS then got edgeguarded heavily.

You might be right on the killing. I still haven't played him, so these are just initial impressions based on fighting him.