Spam_Arrows, I 'm forced to agree with Ran Iji on this one. If Brawl is so easy, and if it requires so little skill, go and place first in a few tournemants, eh? Do that, then come back and tell us that Brawl doesn't require skill. Waste of character space? That'd odd, considering that Melee had a few wasted characters as well IE; Pichu. Come on, not every character is going to be tournament viable. There are always going to br broken/notbroken characters in every fighting game you play. In a sense, there are a lot of wasted character spaces in a lot of fighting games, but it doesn't matter, because people will play them regardless. Despite Pichu's epic fail in Melee, people still played the rat, didn't they?
The game may not require as much technical skill as Melee did, but it's a separate game, people. Stop continuously comparing it to Melee when the game is clearly titled BRAWL. Some people like Brawl more than Melee, despite not needing as much skill. I agree with others when they say that Brawl is more strategy oriented than Melee was, and Melee was more Tech skill oriented than Brawl is. (I'm sorry, that's an *IS* on both of them. Present tense. I still play Melee from time to time. I don't htink it'll die any time soon.)
Also, to answer OP's question, yes. I Do think the gap has increased since May. Dramatically, at that. More experienced players are simply...more experienced, there's no other way to say it. They know how to bait and set the enemy up for an attack, while Noobs justgo around flailing around spamming whatever attacks they can.
Oh wait, I think I just got Troll'd by a PIT MAIN.