lol Jamie dawg. Son you gotta know.
Tokaio is mad young, like 14 I think? He ***** with Lucas. Lucas. That's just for Brawl. My brother is 12 and he ***** in Melee. Age isn't a disadvantage. In fact, I'd consider it an advantage.
Choosing chars depending on tiers is homo. Choose whatever character you have fun with and don't restrict and limit yourself. Sure you could use all the high tier characters and win money but who wants to be a Luke.
The best way to get good, and I believe this is so in both melee and brawl, is to choose one character and work on that one character. Obviously you'll sometimes need cp characters, but in general you usually just focus to get really good with 1 character.
Plus my Ganondorf is better than all my high tiers except for maybe Diddy(?). I think Ganon is my best character even though he's the worst, but I have fun with him. At the end of the day, it shouldn't come down to what placing you get or who you beat but whether or not you had a good time, cause that's why we're playing smash right? To have fun.
Unless you're a Luke or you need to win money to pay for your insulin.