Welcome to the time when 'realistic' gritty graphics were the 'hip' thing at the time. Look at what 3D Zelda came before Twilight Princess: Windwaker and from what I've heard that game got a lot of hate when it first came out because 'ew cartoony childish graphics aren't cool'. Course I'm too lazy to do actual research to see if that's true or not and I'm pretty sure I heard that from my cousin and various comments on the internet so my apologies if that's a load of ****.
As for the Brawl menu, my main issue with it is that the background colour was white. Sure the buttons were coloured but when a good portion of the screen is white with a bit of grey it's really unappealing to the eye. I'd actually be okay with another menu shot so long as it isn't the same as the last one we got.
I can understand different tastes in colors...
But toon link in twilight princess style in brawl...is not supposed to be the case (I disliked his design so much and I love how it looks now).
As for white, that's probably the most annoying color for me if it's near bright ones (and that's broad here like generally bright). It's because I have sight issues and I'm more sensitive to lights so black on white is fine, but cyan green (favorite color) on white is more an annoyance since that's too much light. That's why I'm fine with black or any dark color as background with everything in foreground.
So, I kinda agree.
Edit: I just realised I may get infractions so I should stop, but I don't have that much chances to talk about details like this and I like to do that.