This is true.
We'll see, I suppose.
Theguy123
So using this infamous chart
^This data was based on Twitter responses after DLC character reveals on official Nintendo Twitter accounts. This ofc doesn't represent the opinion of every Smash Bros. player in the respective regions, but its gives an idea as to what kinds of characters people in different regions want.
Some of these characters could've been popular ballot picks back in the Smash 4 ballot days. So borrowing your quote "popular fan pick", we can see a few of these have already happened RELATIVE TO ULTIMATE. Byleth, Steve, and Sephiroth. Perhaps Steve was a popular ballot pick? The ballot opened in April 2015, and we didn't know about Cloud yet for months so perhaps it's not possible that Sephiroth was even a popular choice.
And I can't really explain all the other characters you see. Some of these guys were possibly high placing ballot picks, some weren't. We don't know.