Lol damn. Well at least you're still coming. I've been looking forward to playing all week! Lol
Unfortunately a lot of people seem to be afraid of getting back into (or just into) Melee. Largely because of its speed and technical requirements. Basically, these make spacing and control in general more difficult the higher in level of play you go (or closer you get to the metagame). Brawl, on the other hand, is IMO pretty much always easy to pick up and get back into (and I used to compete in that at a high level). It's really just a matter of knowing the character match-ups. And most of the people that are still around playing Melee today are better than the average player back during Melee's prime, so the competition is a bit tougher too.
Honestly we'll all play the new one when it comes out, right? Lol. And probably try it competitively.
It's almost hard to imagine it being worse than Brawl. But part of the problem is how Nintendo has laxed on the concept of consistency in gameplay. And I don't just mean tripping. Several things, like the entire physics engine for example. I mean, the Havok engine? Seriously? I believe it could work for a fighting game, but not this one; not like this. Lol. But the reduced consistency is essentially all part of the plan toward's Miyamoto's "everybody wins" ideology. :| (move staling helps a lot with that goal too).