Brawl, to me is much MUCH more balanced than Melee. In Melee you would need to be Falco, Fox, Marth, C. Falcon, Peach Sheik... To be able to beat people, the rest of the characters like G&W, Jiggly, Kirby, weren't that good or even considered for tournaments.
Now, take a look at Brawl, we have the Spacies: Fox, Falco and Wolf, all great characters, we have Toon Link, Olimar, Zelda/Sheik, DK, Didd Kong, D3, Marth, Metaknight, Kirby, Bowser, Snake, Sonic, ROB, Pikachu... Hell, it's easier to name the bad players rather than the good ones. Brawl is much more balanced than Melee in my opinion, Haven't you notied the difficulty in choosing a main? I for one was a FOX ONLY user from N64 to Melee, right now I'm using Fox, Diddy, Pikachu, Wolf, Falco and learning a thing or two about the others.