In general, the biggest thing should be to make approaches and follow ups more viable, but NOT BY NERFING DEFENSIVE OPTIONS!
Improved air speed for characters like Luigi and robin to take advantage of their great aerials makes sense. Less lag on approach enabling projectiles like fireball is a good idea, decreasing base knock back on a lot of throws (specifically down throws) is a good idea. Less landing lag on a lot of characters would make them a lot better (that's a big part off shiek's game). And probably the biggest thing is the player mind sets, nerf those so people are more willing to adapt to change
Look, the fact of the matter is that rolls and shields and especially spotdodges are very difficult to punish. Decreasing the number of iframes during rolling and spotdodging and increasing the number of vulnerable frames when putting your shield up would majorly improve the game, and would not harm it at all. I don't care if you've discovered some foolproof way to counter them, making them less powerful would make the game itself better because you can't just throw out smash attacks randomly and then just put your shield up immediately when someone tries to punish.
This is especially important because everyone's favorite character, Diddy Kong, has barely any endlag on any of his attacks, so he can put his shield up immediately and stop anyone from punishing him. If you want to nerf Diddy Kong, you need to nerf shields.
Rolls are far from hard to punish, people are getting used to shield by learning spacing options (Like shiek's unpunishable perfectly spaced fair), and people will get used to spot dodges (though I admit that one annoys me just a little).
And diddy doesn't really need a nerf either. I'd much rather they supply other characters with semi reliable mid percentage killing options too. Diddy is fun to play as and fun to play against, and that's the sign of a well made character. The only problem is he's slightly better than just about everyone else.
Basically, what you claim to be the "fact of the matter," is pure preference, and some of it is just incorrect. Strong defensive options improve the game in several ways, and IMO those outweigh the minor negatives they bring (not that I consider blindly approaching no longer being viable a negative)
diddy uair kills later
samus/wft/mac buff like seriously these characters are horrible
nerf rolls by a bit
less lag on reflet grab maybe?
increase shield sutn
rosa disjoint range nerfs
mk hitbox fixes (why does he miss every goddamn attack)
ness bthrow kills later
more lag on needles and zamus taser
pika usmash nerf
Nerf Ness's killing throw, and you kill the character. The move didn't kill too early unless your opponent severely outplayed you and set it up near the ledge p. No nerf needed there.
Same with Rosa, remove her gimmick and she's just an average character.
I don't know why you'd nerf pika's up smash, it's good but hardly unbalanced
Zero's laser, if anything might need buffed. More lag, but more range when fully charged as well. No change needed to uncharged lasers.
Needles? Ugh, I think everyone gets annoyed at these, and some start up lag would be fine, but I'd rather leave it alone because it'd be easy to give it too much lag, and I'd rather avoid that.
