I think players in Melee matches are thinking just as much, they are just doing it faster. I don't see why you think there isn't just as much thinking going on in Melee matches. When I play Melee I think just the same as I do in Brawl, i'm just forced to do it quicker. I'm not sure why you make the false assumption that just because things are moving faster, people will think less. If you don't fully evaluate your approach and strategy in Melee you will be punished, you definitely can't rely on tech skill to make a good approach, especially against a character like Peach.
Let me ask you, if Brawl moved at one tenth the speed it does now, do you think it would be even more of a thinking game? At what speed would you draw a line?
I dont know why you quoted that segment. Nowhere in that segment do I even speak about Melee. In case you misunderstood what I wrote what is expressed there is that spectators watching a game are never thinking even a fraction of what the person playing the game is thinking. Sure sometimes you imagine yourself being X or Y player on this match, try to analize his moves and predict his actions, but that is not what a regular spectator does, a regular spectator just watches in order to be amazed by the awesome moments. If you reread my post without being so defensive about your bias you might see it.
One thing you have to understand is I do not hold bias for either Melee or Brawl. I hold both games in a very high regard. I love them both and understand them both and I actually prefer Melee over Brawl.
I never said that a Melee player inherintly thinks less than a Brawl player. Neither did I say smarter players played Brawl. What I did say though was that Brawl does have a thinking barrier above Melee. In Melee, being fully competent at techs will get you much farther than thinking well. By this I don't mean thinking isn't important, obviously smart plays are the most important thing in any smash, yet wavedashing and L-Cancelling correctly will allow you to beat a much smarter opponent that is unable to do either. This does not exist in Brawl which means that to be a competent player you are required to be really good at outsmarting your opponent and thinking your approaches.
Basically what I mean to say is that the best Melee players as well as the best Brawl players are just as smart and probably smarter than any other player. But you can still become competent in Melee just by being proficient at all of the techs and having a bare minimum of what we call "smart plays". In Brawl though the whole metagame (except for maybe MK) is based around these smart plays which in turn means that in order to be competent in Brawl this bar of bare minimums of "smart plays" is raised higher than Melee. It's like having 10 things you need to know to be competent, if you fail at 1 it isn't that bad if you can complete all other 9, yet if instead of 10 things you only had 2, then it is much more important that you do not fail at that 1 thing. That does not mean you cannot think as much or more in Melee than Brawl, you obviously can and the higher level the player the more he does.
This argument has nothing to do with Melee or Brawl, I am just answering your previous question, When something is faster there is normally less opportunity to think, that is always a given. People analyze things at different speeds and volumes, in different ways. Having less oportunity to think does in fact in a "stadistics" poblational sample. Basically what I mean by this is that if you took every person in the world and made them play rounds of rock, paper, scissors with only 2 second intervals between each round they might just choose a random one each time. If you then proceed to do the same but with 10 second intervals then you might see people trying to figure their opponents choices a bit more.
The above analysis in no way resembles Melee or Brawl, it was just answering your questions. Obviously there is a fine line where no more thinking can be done. If you gave them 10 minutes instead of seconds most people would probably end up making a choice by the 20-30 second mark and just waiting for the remaining time, there is obviously a line, yet I cannot tell you where that line resides.
Approaches from a competent player who can wave-dash, L-Cancel and Space correctly consistently give the opponent much less opportunity to punish you. (note this does not mean punishes aren't as hard, we all know in Melee punishes are much stronger, what this means is there is much less window or options to punish a correctly played approach. This in turn means that your opponent can approach safer, thus allowing him to think less of his approaches if he so desires. It doesn't mean he has to, it means he can. This is why things like Shield Pressure exist in Melee and I am not saying Shield Pressure is bad, it is a good thing and something very fun to do and see! Yet in Brawl none of that exists meaning you need to think out that one and only attack much more in order to connect it.
As a conclusion to this post I know I said some things that don't quite make sense but I was in a hurry because I have to do some personal things. I just want to reinstate I hold no bias towards either game and I see them each with its own personal merit.
