The fact that they haven't changed Sonic's moveset a lot, despite him having been part of three base games now, does kinda point to this being the case - if Sakurai and co. felt the need to change things around, chances are pretty good that the moveset would not have been the only aspect changed. There's an imperfect contrast* to be made with Pit and Bowser here, who did get not only a moveset shake-up but also newcomers related to them in Smash 4.
Now I'm not entirely sure if that's the only reason for the shakeup, or if mechanical stuff also contributed to them, but I wouldn't be surprised with the latter answer. Pit's old Up B could do some really silly things, such as camping the edge like
(back when edge invincibility was still refreshed constantly - planking in Melee and Brawl is why they removed it and edgehogging in Smash 4) or even wavedash. Oh and Brawl Pit could be a surprisingly technical character, so I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to streamline him since new players coming in would know him primarily from KI Uprising, where he can be an allrounder effectively. Bowser meanwhile was reworked to help any reliability issues and define his strengths properly - I'm pretty sure that Sakurai's eyes widened when he saw Brawl Bowser players do stuff like infinite double jumps (by timing a Side B glitch granted, but still) and grab release shenaningas. In particular, Sakurai made a point to reduce Bowser's endlag in 4 and give him the Tough Guy armor (which Ultimate buffed further, suggesting this is the playstyle he wants with Bowser).They took a different tact with Sonic despite him being considered okay in Brawl - like Pit was. They kept Sonic's moveset mostly intact and buffed it heavily like they did with Mario (who struggled in Brawl) in the transition to 4 - with the nerfs being primarily given to his Final Smash. Yeah, that's understandable. The most major change gameplay-wise in Ultimate is that Sonic can no longer shield-cancel Spin Dash nor hold it forever (instead releasing after two seconds). That suggests to me that Sakurai and co. are either A) overall content with the direction they took, or B) constrained by SEGA's requests on how to design him.
FWIW, Sonic has seen less reliance on the Spin as a way of attacking. Dash Attack no longer involves the Spin, nor does Down Smash - which suggests that changes can be made, question is how much. And TBF, Ultimate tuned Sonic into a much more aggresive direction than his Brawl / 4 counterparts by buffing his tilts / smashes (mostly), improving most of his aerials and toning down Spin Dash / Spin Charge.
*(It's imperfect since the other two are first party and Pit was the main character of KI Uprising, but still. And yes, I'm confident he or his team saw that - not only was Brawl's changes intentional, but Brawl also had a very active Japanese scene. A couple of Ultimate's playtesters, like 9B and Earth, are Brawl veterans - with the latter being a Brawl Pit main.)
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