You gave me the impression that Crash will never be in the game based on how you worded it. His time will come. Eventually. It's a matter of when.
I don't share Louie's view on Crash's chances, I'm more bullish on him. Though in this case it just means I think he's a plausible addition, not necessarily one of exceedingly high odds.
It's sort of six of one half-dozen of the other to now be under a company that seems to be easier to negotiate with, and is already in Smash, yet has a much more stacked lineup of candidates.
But I don't agree that any remaining third-party is a question of when rather than if. Third-party inclusion is unpredictable, somewhat haphazard, is full of behind the scenes development we'll never be aware of, and deals with a huge pool of candidates. There are too many variables to declare anyone a lock, even a lock of indefinite timing.
Characters like Ridley, K Rool, Banjo, Steve, and even Sora were heavily requested throughout the past 15 years and took them until 2018-2020 timeline to get them all in.
There have been many characters that had high popularity endure the length Crash's has (which is roughly one era) and haven't been in. Ridley, K Rool, Banjo and Sora had popularity start at least two games before they got in, if not three. And we still have several characters of game-spanning high popularity who aren't fighters.
And Steve's demand lasted nowhere near 15 years before he was included. Unless you were on Miiverse it barely even started until
during Ultimate. Though he also doesn't really belong on this list considering he wasn't added due to demand.
Sora not being ample enough is somewhat surprising. Not counting that he was heavily requested, he pretty much got in by luck. If I recall correctly, Sakurai bumped into a Disney rep to get things started and that led to many discussions. Think about it: Sora is pretty much the definition of "unlikely" due to his connections to Disney. But he broke that barrier thanks to Sakurai.
But the argument isn't whether Smash could land Crash. I'm sure they could, if they wanted to. Luck isn't particularly germane to the argument you're making, and in fact supports Louie's argument that Sora is indeed not a good parallel.
Again I'm not saying we won't get Crash - I think we might. It's possible. But I agree that these characters only work as parallels to a limited degree, because they also have a lot of dissimilarities to Crash and/or his situation.
Last time I checked, Crash does have fan demand during the Wii U/3DS era. Let's not forget that unlike Banjo, Crash was pretty much one of the main faces of the Playstation/Sony era during the PS1/PS2 and was considered a "rival" to Mario. Outside of Sonic, very few characters get that recognition. All the games were very solid and well received throughout the PS1 and most of PS2 era.
I think what Louie is saying is that Banjo's specific history with Nintendo is unique, which is true, and that makes him a poor parallel for other characters who have similarities in the content/timeframe of the IP, like Crash, but lack the same kind of relationship Banjo has to Nintendo, represented via Smash.
And I agree with that. For the most part the spectrum of "Nintendo association" is a relic from a different era of Smash speculation, but if a character is in a special circumstance where they transcend the whole scale due to a unique history where they basically were Nintendo, it makes them a poor comparison against characters that weren't in that situation - which is most of them. The two that most come to mind being Banjo and Bayonetta.
A better (though still imperfect) parallel is Banjo is to Smash what Crash would be to PSASBR, had it continued.
Also Crash's demand before his revival (which was post-4) was pretty negligible. It is true he was not a major request until Ultimate.