Okay, my beef with "Sakurai" logic from this quote:
"I had created Smash Bros. to be my response to how hardcore-exclusive the fighting game genre had become over the years. But why did I target it so squarely toward people well-versed in videogames, then? That's why I tried to aim for more of a happy medium with Brawl's play balance. There are three Smash Bros. games out now, but even if I ever had a chance at another one, I doubt we'll ever see one that's as geared toward hardcore gamers as Melee was. Melee fans who played deep into the game without any problems might have trouble understanding this, but Melee was just too difficult."
If we want new people from this generation of gamers to come in, then we need it accessible, simple, and playable by anyone. You can't let yourself get preoccupied with nothing but gameplay and balance details. That's where the core of the Smash Bros. concept lies, not on doggedly keeping the game the way it was before."
source:http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=144539
Is that even in Melee, you still had a "happy medium". I'm sure any person who was a former casual in Melee (like myself) can easily say that there wasn't anything remotely "hard" unless you wanted to make the game about it that way, the most broken thing in the world for me before I actually learned to fight against it was sheik's juggling and ftilt/fair in Melee, or an even longer time ago, Link + cstick lol. Of course, that changed a loooooot when I wanted to learn more about the game, and I got better/joined into the more competitive aspect of the game. Casual players had their own large, happy, and blissfully unaware sphere of this game, then you had something in for the more hardcore players of this game. noobs weren't all of a sudden "disappointed" when all these methods of technicality were being formed by a more competitive circle, it's not like they have this "inadequacy alert" that goes off. And the ones that did ever get disappointed when they learned how much more there is, they probably are not too far from the ones that get disillusioned when they finally realize how little a fish they are in a big pond for Brawl as well.
Gameplay adaptability is more than just looking at the full potential of a game and lowering it, it actually in many ways comes back to bite lower levels of play.
I also do not want this to become a spout of Brawl bashing, and if it does, I apologize in advance for bringing this up.
That being said, I love Brawl still and some of the stuff it gives, like character designs conceptually, and innovations it brought. I also enjoy its learning curve, as does a friend of mine who was actually pretty legitimate in Melee because you have less barriers to work with (he hated how it seemed like he was one L-cancel away from getting screwed over especially playing much better players, he was fairly consistent but still), but also can create enough of a difference where if you're skilled enough, you can make a determinable gap, which I think constitutes for it still being competitively viable. Is it where I like it? Probably not, but considering how much irl stuff happens, I don't think I'd ever be able to build enough of a foundation to make my tech skill usable in Melee.